Chapter 5 - The Brother Everyone Suspected
Nathan Vance answered the door holding a kitchen knife.
Not because he expected Julian.
Because someone had already broken into his house.
The living room windows were shattered.
A laptop lay crushed on the floor.
Nathan's white shirt was streaked with blood from a cut across his forearm.
Julian froze.
"What happened?"
Nathan laughed bitterly.
"Nice to see you too."
Arthur stepped inside behind Julian.
Nathan's expression hardened.
"What are you doing here?"
"We need to talk," Arthur said.
"Now you need to talk?"
"Nathan."
"No."
Nathan pointed toward the broken room.
"Someone tore this place apart twenty minutes ago. Police haven't even arrived yet, and suddenly the two of you show up together."
Julian held up Samuel Crawford's letter.
"Because someone has been framing you."
Nathan stopped.
The anger did not disappear.
But uncertainty entered.
Julian handed him the letter.
Nathan read silently.
When he reached his own name, he sat down.
"Samuel knew?"
"Apparently."
Nathan read the paragraph again.
Then he looked at Arthur.
"You suspected me, didn't you?"
Arthur did not answer quickly enough.
Nathan laughed once.
"Of course you did."
Julian stepped between them.
"We found a cloned executive credential under your name."
Nathan looked at him.
"And you?"
"What?"
"Did you think I did it?"
Julian could have lied.
Instead he said, "For about thirty seconds."
Nathan looked away.
"At least you're honest."
Police sirens approached outside.
Julian looked around the damaged room.
"What were they searching for?"
Nathan wiped blood from his arm.
"I don't know."
"Think."
"I said I don't know."
"Nathan."
His brother stared at him.
Then walked toward the kitchen.
He opened a cabinet and removed a metal case.
Inside were prototype security devices.
"I've been working on bank authentication hardware."
Arthur frowned.
"For your company?"
Nathan shook his head.
"For Samuel."
Julian stared.
"You knew him?"
"He contacted me six months before he died."
Arthur looked stunned.
"You never told me."
"He told me not to."
Nathan removed a small drive.
"Samuel believed someone was stealing executive authorization codes. He asked whether I could design a detector."
Julian remembered the relay beneath Arthur's desk.
"Did you?"
Nathan nodded.
"But before I finished, Samuel died."
Arthur sat heavily.
"And you still didn't tell me?"
Nathan's voice sharpened.
"We weren't exactly a family that talked."
The accusation landed on all three of them.
Julian looked at the drive.
"What's on that?"
"Samuel's research."
"You kept it for three years?"
"I forgot about it until someone started trying to buy my company last month."
"Who?"
Nathan looked directly at him.
"Northbridge Holdings."
Julian went still.
"That's impossible."
"I received three offers."
"I never authorized them."
"Your signature was on every one."
Arthur's expression changed.
Victor was not merely inside the bank.
Someone had penetrated Northbridge too.
Nathan connected the drive to an offline laptop.
Documents appeared.
Samuel had tracked dozens of transactions linking failing companies to a network of shell corporations.
All routes eventually converged on one entity.
A private fund called Crown Meridian Partners.
Julian stared at the name.
Metropolitan Crown.
Meridian Trust.
A combination.
"Who owns it?" he asked.
Nathan clicked the ownership file.
The controlling beneficiary was hidden behind a trust.
But Samuel had discovered a trustee.
Marianne Vance.
Julian stopped breathing.
May you like
Arthur whispered, "Your mother."
Their mother had been dead for fourteen months.
