Chapter 10 - What Arthur Did Six Years Ago
The voice belonged to Dominic.
He was alive.
Barely.
Sebastian had shot him and transported him to the estate as bait.
Arthur carried him downstairs.
Daniel treated the wound.
Dominic told them Sebastian was waiting in Victor’s old study.
Evelyn was there.
So was the master ledger.
But Sebastian had discovered something none of them knew.
Arthur had met Evelyn six years earlier.
Arthur denied it.
Dominic produced a photograph.
Arthur and Evelyn.
Prague.
Clara stared.
Arthur looked genuinely confused.
Then Daniel understood.
“Drugged.”
Six years earlier, Arthur had disappeared for thirty-six hours.
He remembered waking in a hotel with no memory of the previous day.
Victor’s men had taken him.
Evelyn had tried to reach him.
Sebastian later erased the evidence.
Clara looked at Arthur.
Another piece of his life stolen.
“Why?”
Dominic answered.
“Victor wanted Evelyn to believe Arthur had betrayed her.”
It worked.
For years Evelyn distrusted Arthur.
Daniel eventually corrected the lie.
Sebastian’s entire strategy depended on isolation.
Make everyone distrust everyone.
Clara saw the pattern.
Her humiliation.
Arthur’s insomnia.
Daniel’s disappearance.
Forged contracts.
Hidden photographs.
Every move designed to break trust.
So they did the one thing Sebastian had never planned for.
They trusted one another.
Arthur entered the study openly.
Clara approached through the servant corridor.
Daniel disabled security.
Dominic called federal agents.
Evelyn stalled Sebastian.
When Clara entered, Sebastian was furious.
“You should have come alone.”
“I spent too much of my life alone.”
Arthur stepped into view.
“So did I.”
Sebastian fired.
Arthur moved.
Clara struck Sebastian’s wrist with the same razor she had used on the pillow.
The gun fell.
Evelyn kicked it away.
Arthur subdued him.
Police arrived minutes later.
This time, it should have ended.
But Sebastian smiled while being handcuffed.
“You still haven’t opened the ledger.”
Evelyn frowned.
“We have.”
“No. You opened the copy.”
Silence.
Sebastian laughed.
“The real ledger contains one final account.”
Arthur stepped closer.
“Whose?”
Sebastian looked at Clara.
“Thomas Vance.”
Her father.
Clara’s chest tightened.
Her father had supposedly died when she was nine.
Sebastian continued.
“He wasn’t innocent.”
Evelyn slapped him.
But Clara had seen her mother’s expression.
Fear.
There was truth somewhere inside the lie.
Later, Clara confronted Evelyn.
Her mother admitted Thomas had initially worked for Victor.
He helped build the financial architecture.
Then he fell in love with Evelyn and tried to dismantle it.
Victor killed him.
Or so they believed.
Daniel found the real ledger inside the estate wall.
Thomas’s final entries were there.
They showed he had transferred millions out of Victor’s network.
Not for himself.
To victims.
Safe houses.
Witness relocation.
Families.
Thomas had spent his final years stealing Victor’s empire one account at a time.
Clara cried.
Not because her father was perfect.
Because he had tried.
Arthur sat beside her.
“My father gave me a name I spent my life escaping.”
Clara looked at him.
“Mine gave me one worth growing into.”
Arthur nodded.
They remained together in silence.
Then Clara rested her head against his shoulder.
Arthur’s breathing slowed.
Minutes later, she realized he had fallen asleep.
Sitting upright.
Beside her.
No gun in his hand.
She smiled.
Then Daniel burst into the room.
“Arthur.”
Arthur woke instantly.
Daniel held the real ledger.
“There’s another active account.”
Arthur stood.
“Where?”
Daniel turned the screen.
Money had moved three minutes earlier.
The authorization came from inside federal custody.
May you like
From Victor Kingsley.
And the destination account belonged to someone everyone believed was dead.
