Chapter 7 - THE MAN I TRUSTED
We escaped through the emergency tunnel.
Police arrived minutes later.
Evelyn was alive.
Barely.
Daniel was gone.
And the vault had been emptied.
Everything.
Except one thing.
The letter.
I read it again and again.
The person behind everything was someone you trust.
Who?
My mind raced through everyone close to me.
My executives.
My security chief.
My father's old friends.
Then one name kept returning.
My own mother.
But she had died when I was twenty-five.
I remembered her final weeks.
The way she cried whenever my father mentioned Sophie.
The way she once told me:
"Michael, someday you'll understand why your father had to lie."
At the time, I thought she was confused.
Now I wasn't so sure.
I returned to my apartment.
Sophie was sleeping in the guest room.
I stood outside her door for several minutes.
She looked so peaceful.
So small.
She had lost her mother.
Her father.
Her home.
And now she had been dragged into a war she didn't understand.
I promised myself nobody would hurt her again.
Then my phone rang.
It was Evelyn.
"Michael."
"Are you okay?"
"No."
Her voice trembled.
"I remembered something."
"What?"
"Your father didn't trust your mother."
I froze.
"What?"
"Before he died, he told me she had been meeting someone."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"Where?"
"At an old church."
"Which one?"
She gave me the address.
I knew it.
It was where my parents had married.
The next morning, I took Sophie with me.
Inside the church, everything was quiet.
We walked toward the old confession booths.
Sophie stopped.
"Mr. Michael?"
"What?"
"Mom said my dad hid something where people tell secrets."
I stared at her.
The confession booth.
We searched the wooden panels.
Nothing.
Then Sophie pointed upward.
"What's that?"
A tiny compartment was hidden above the frame.
I opened it.
Inside was a cassette tape.
And a letter.
The letter was from my mother.
Richard,
If you refuse to stop, I'll have no choice.
Michael cannot know.
Neither can Sophie.
If you tell him, they will come for him.
My hands shook.
The cassette contained a recording.
A woman's voice.
My mother's.
"Richard, please."
Then my father's voice.
"No."
"You don't understand."
"I know exactly what you're doing."
"I did it for our family."
"You sold us."
Silence.
Then my mother's voice whispered:
"Jonathan promised me Michael would be safe."
My heart stopped.
The tape ended.
Sophie looked up at me.
"Was that Grandma?"
I couldn't answer.
Because suddenly I understood.
My mother hadn't been the mastermind.
She had been afraid.
And Jonathan had been controlling her.
But why?
Then I heard footsteps behind us.
I turned.
A man stood at the end of the church aisle.
He looked at me.
May you like
And smiled.
It was Jonathan.
