Chapter 4 - The Account Tyler Thought I Would Never Find
The bullet missed his heart by less than an inch.
Adrian’s men got us out through the basement while another vehicle drew the shooter away.
My father survived.
For twelve hours, I sat beside him in a private surgical suite owned by one of Adrian’s associates.
When Richard Bellamy finally opened his eyes, I didn’t hug him.
Not immediately.
I asked the question that had been burning through me.
“Why did you let me bury you?”
His eyes closed.
“Because Tyler was watching you.”
The truth came slowly.
My father had discovered the missing money eighteen months earlier.
At first he suspected an accounting error.
Then he found shell corporations.
Tyler had authorized transfers but wasn’t working alone.
Marcus Dane had threatened Richard after he began investigating.
When Richard suffered a cardiac event during their confrontation, Adrian helped fake his death.
“I thought I could finish it from hiding.”
“You could have trusted me.”
“I was afraid they would use you.”
“They did anyway.”
He looked older after that.
“I know.”
Karin’s birth certificate was real.
My father admitted the affair.
Evelyn Vale had worked with him before he married my mother.
He had supported Karin secretly but lost contact when Evelyn moved away.
“I failed both daughters differently,” he said.
That was perhaps the first completely truthful thing anyone had said all week.
I didn’t forgive him.
But I stayed.
Three days later, I returned to Vance Holdings with attorneys.
Tyler had called an emergency board meeting.
He wanted me removed.
His justification was my “emotional instability.”
I walked into the boardroom wearing red.
The same color I had worn at Bellarosa.
Tyler stared.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I own thirty-eight percent of this company.”
“Your voting rights are under review.”
“Because of this?”
I placed the forged agreement on the table.
The directors looked at one another.
Tyler’s attorney stood.
I produced the original signature records.
Then the bank transfers.
Then Karin entered.
Tyler went white.
She testified that Tyler had asked her to witness documents I had never signed.
His attorney requested an adjournment.
Denied.
The board suspended Tyler pending investigation.
For the first time in years, my husband had no answer.
Afterward, he cornered me in the hallway.
“You think Moretti is saving you?”
“I’m saving myself.”
“He wants the company.”
“Then why are you afraid of him?”
Tyler leaned closer.
“Because your father wasn’t investigating thirty million.”
I stopped.
“He was investigating three hundred million.”
Tyler walked away.
That night, we reopened the ledger.
He was right.
The thirty-one million was only one branch.
Hidden beneath it were transfers spanning twenty years.
My father hadn’t created them.
Neither had Tyler.
The first transfer occurred when Tyler was fourteen.
Someone older was behind it.
We traced the original authorization.
VANCE, ELEANOR.
Tyler’s mother.
A woman who had supposedly died seven years earlier.
Adrian stared at the screen.
“She’s alive.”
“How do you know?”
He didn’t answer.
Then the apartment buzzer sounded.
Nobody was expected.
Adrian checked the security camera.
A silver-haired woman stood outside.
She lifted her face toward the lens.
I had seen that face in Tyler’s childhood photographs.
Eleanor Vance smiled directly into the camera.
May you like
Then she raised a gun.
And the elevator doors opened behind her.
