Chapter 9 - The Daughter Nobody Named
Vera looked at Elena.
“No.”
Elena’s face crumpled.
Nikolai stared at his mother.
Anton sat down.
Daniel whispered, “Vera…”
She turned on him.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
The room tilted.
Vera backed away.
“No.”
Elena moved toward her.
Vera raised one hand.
“Don’t.”
Elena stopped.
Daniel explained.
Elena was not Vera’s biological mother.
The certificate was false.
Vale had created it years earlier as insurance.
If discovered, it would make Vera appear to be an illegitimate Voss heir and destroy trust between the families.
“Then who was my mother?”
Daniel’s eyes filled.
“Your mother was Sarah Sullivan.”
Vera exhaled.
Sarah had died when Vera was four.
That memory, at least, remained hers.
Nikolai examined the certificate.
“Vale wants confusion.”
“Yes,” Elena said.
“He wants us fighting each other.”
Vera tore the false certificate in half.
“Then he wasted his time.”
They went to Greenhouse Nine.
Vale was not there.
But he had left the original ledger.
That made no sense.
Nikolai opened it carefully.
Pages had been removed.
The missing section covered twenty-two years of transactions.
Daniel looked horrified.
“He took the names.”
“Which names?”
“The people still active.”
Vale had the one piece capable of exposing his remaining network.
But Vera noticed numbers written in the margins.
Gardening codes.
Her father’s system.
She decoded them.
They formed coordinates.
A lake cabin.
Nikolai recognized it.
“My father took me there as a child.”
They arrived after dark.
Inside, they found servers.
Vale’s backup system.
Dmitri began copying everything.
Then security alarms triggered.
Vehicles surrounded the cabin.
Vale had expected them.
Gunfire tore through the windows.
Nikolai pushed Vera down.
Elias and Daniel returned fire.
Elena found a tunnel.
They escaped toward the lake.
But Anton was hit.
Nikolai carried his father.
They reached a boathouse.
Anton survived, barely.
Dmitri had copied enough data.
They now possessed the evidence.
Vale’s empire was finished if they reached authorities.
Vera’s satellite phone rang.
Vale.
“You won,” he said.
She frowned.
“That sounds too easy.”
“It was.”
“What do you mean?”
“I never needed the ledger destroyed.”
“Then what did you need?”
“You gathered everyone for me.”
Vera looked around.
Nikolai.
Daniel.
Elias.
Anton.
Elena.
Dmitri.
All together.
Vale laughed softly.
“Thank you.”
The boathouse doors locked automatically.
Nikolai looked up.
May you like
Vera smelled gasoline.
Then the first flame appeared beneath the door.
