Chapter 12 - THE CHAPEL IN THE WOODS
Daniel insisted Emily remain at the mansion.
Emily refused.
“My mother’s records are in that vault.”
“And Richard may be armed.”
“He has spent my entire life deciding what I am allowed to know. I am done waiting in rooms while men protect me with silence.”
Daniel absorbed the accusation.
Then he nodded.
“Stay beside me.”
Thomas joined them despite the cut on his face.
Ashley demanded to come.
“No,” Daniel said.
“If my mother’s evidence is there, I have a right.”
Emily looked at Ashley.
Minutes earlier, they had been enemies.
Perhaps they still were.
But Richard had shaped both women’s lives through promises, secrets, and calculated humiliation.
“Let her come,” Emily said.
Daniel looked displeased but did not argue.
They followed the underground passage from the wine cellar. The tunnel was narrow and damp, reinforced with old brick. Electric cables had been installed recently, proving Richard still used it.
Halfway through, they found a discarded leather folder.
Emily opened it.
Inside were copies of the foundation transfer documents and a photograph of Daniel standing outside a hotel beside an unidentified woman.
Ashley looked at the photograph.
“That was meant to prove the affair.”
Daniel examined it.
“This image was taken two years ago in Paris.”
Emily recognized the coat he had worn on a business trip.
“Who is the woman?”
Daniel looked closer.
“I don’t know.”
Ashley pointed to the reflection in the hotel window.
A man stood behind the photographer.
Martin.
Thomas took the image.
“He has worked for Richard longer than he admitted.”
Emily thought of the bedroom recording.
Martin had helped create false evidence.
He had also preserved the original recording and called her by Laura’s name.
“Do you believe he is my father?”
Thomas answered quietly.
“Yes.”
“Do you trust him?”
“No.”
They continued.
The passage ended beneath the ruined chapel at the northern edge of the Blackwood estate.
The chapel had been abandoned after a fire decades earlier. Ivy covered the stone walls. The roof had partly collapsed, exposing the night sky.
A steel door stood beneath the altar.
It was open.
Inside, Richard faced a wall of locked deposit drawers.
He held a pistol in one hand and a black storage drive in the other.
“You should have signed the agreement,” he told Emily.
Daniel stepped in front of her.
“Put the gun down.”
Richard laughed.
“You still think this is about money.”
“You stole forty-eight million dollars.”
“To contain a threat.”
“My wife is not a threat.”
“She is the legal trigger for the destruction of everything this family built.”
Emily moved beside Daniel.
“What did my mother discover?”
Richard looked at her for a long moment.
“That Blackwood Holdings was founded with stolen government contracts, bribed judges, and money taken from displaced families after the war.”
Thomas said, “Edmund created the original trust to repay them.”
“Edmund became sentimental in his old age,” Richard replied. “He planned to dissolve half the company and distribute the assets.”
“And Laura supported him,” Emily said.
“She stole the records necessary to execute the plan.”
“You killed her.”
Richard’s expression did not change.
“Charles acted without my permission.”
“But you covered it up.”
“I protected thousands of employees and investors from a scandal created before I was born.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“You protected yourself.”
Richard raised the pistol.
“I protected your inheritance.”
“I don’t want an inheritance built on murder.”
“You say that because you have never lived without power.”
Emily looked toward the deposit drawers.
“Which one contains the original trust?”
Richard smiled faintly.
“None of them.”
Ashley moved from behind Thomas.
“Where is my mother?”
Richard’s smile faded.
“Ashley, go back to the house.”
“Is she alive?”
“You are emotional.”
“Answer me.”
Richard’s gaze softened with something that almost resembled pity.
“Your mother understood the cost of disloyalty.”
Ashley’s face hardened.
“You told me she died of cancer.”
“She did, in a sense.”
Ashley lunged forward.
Richard turned the gun toward her.
Daniel moved at the same time.
A shot exploded inside the vault.
Stone dust fell from the ceiling.
Ashley collapsed.
Emily screamed her name.
But the bullet had struck the wall beside her.
Thomas tackled Richard.
The pistol skidded across the floor.
Daniel restrained his father while Emily pulled Ashley away.
Richard fought with startling strength.
Then the black storage drive fell from his hand and cracked beneath Daniel’s shoe.
Richard stopped struggling.
He stared at the broken casing.
“You have no idea what you have done.”
Daniel pulled him to his feet.
“I ended it.”
“No,” Richard said. “You erased the only copy proving Emily is not the legitimate heir.”
Emily stood slowly.
“What?”
Richard looked directly at her.
“Laura had no biological daughter.”
Thomas’s face changed.
Richard saw it.
“You never told her that part, did you?”
Emily turned toward Thomas.
“Dad?”
Thomas said nothing.
May you like
Richard laughed.
“The child Laura gave him was not hers.”
