Chapter 10 - The Founder
The SUV traveled north.
Asher held Elias against his chest the entire way.
He had no idea whether Daniel’s tracker still worked.
Helen Marsh had taken his phone.
She had found one tracker hidden inside his watch and tossed it out the window.
Maybe Daniel had planted others.
Maybe not.
Asher focused on Elias.
The baby slept.
Unaware that half a century of family secrets seemed to orbit his existence.
“Why did you take him?”
Helen looked out the window.
“To make sure you came.”
“You could have called.”
“You don’t answer strangers.”
“I answered you.”
“Because I had your son.”
Asher’s arms tightened.
“If this is some attempt to prove a point—”
“It isn’t.”
“Then why?”
“Henry wants to meet you.”
Asher laughed.
“My ninety-something-year-old supposedly dead grandfather?”
“Ninety-six.”
“Of course.”
“He is healthier than people half his age.”
“Wonderful.”
Helen looked toward him.
“You think this is absurd.”
“I think my dead father died three months ago after being dead twelve years, my fertility doctor died last month and is sitting beside me, and now my grandfather has returned from a thirty-year grave.”
Helen smiled.
“When you say it that way…”
He stared at her.
She stopped smiling.
The SUV entered a private estate outside the city.
Gates opened automatically.
An old stone mansion appeared through trees.
Asher had never seen it.
Inside, staff moved silently.
Helen led him into a library.
An elderly man sat beside the fireplace.
Thin.
White hair.
Sharp blue eyes.
Age had weakened his body but not his presence.
Asher knew the face from portraits.
Henry Lennox.
Founder of Lennox Industries.
His grandfather.
The man whose funeral Asher vaguely remembered attending at age six.
Henry looked at him for a long moment.
Then at Elias.
“Bring me the child.”
Asher’s expression hardened.
“No.”
Henry smiled.
“Good.”
“What?”
“You said no.”
“I tend to do that when people kidnap my children.”
“I did not order the kidnapping.”
Asher looked at Helen.
She said nothing.
Henry sighed.
“Helen is dramatic.”
“She stole my newborn from a hospital.”
“I apologize.”
“You apologize?”
“I will compensate—”
Asher laughed.
“Finish that sentence and I walk out.”
Henry studied him.
Then nodded.
“Richard raised you better than I expected.”
“Why am I here?”
Henry gestured toward a chair.
Asher remained standing.
“Suit yourself.”
Henry looked at Elias again.
“The boy is important.”
“So everyone keeps saying.”
“He proves the line.”
“Your line.”
“Yes.”
“What exactly is everyone fighting over?”
Henry smiled sadly.
“Not money.”
Asher almost laughed.
“In this family?”
“Money is only useful because it buys leverage.”
“What leverage?”
“Control.”
“Of Lennox Global?”
“Of something older.”
Asher waited.
Henry leaned back.
“After the war, my father built shipping routes across Europe.”
Asher frowned.
“I know the company history.”
“No. You know the public version.”
Of course.
Henry continued.
“Those routes moved steel, medicine, machinery.”
“And?”
“Information.”
Asher stared.
“Intelligence?”
“Sometimes.”
“For governments?”
“Sometimes.”
“You built a private intelligence network.”
“My father did. I expanded it.”
Asher looked around the room.
“This is insane.”
“It created Lennox Global.”
“Then why hide?”
“Because eventually the network became more valuable than the company.”
“What kind of information?”
“Political corruption. Corporate crimes. Secret negotiations. People’s weaknesses.”
Asher’s voice chilled.
“Blackmail.”
“Insurance.”
“Blackmail.”
Henry smiled faintly.
“You do resemble Gabriel.”
The name struck Asher.
“You knew Gabriel was my biological father?”
“Yes.”
“Did Gabriel?”
“No.”
“You let Richard use his genetic material?”
“No.”
Asher frowned.
“Richard took it without permission?”
“Yes.”
Another secret.
Another betrayal.
“Why did Gabriel disappear?”
Henry looked toward the fire.
“Because he discovered what I had built.”
“And?”
“He wanted to destroy it.”
Asher’s jaw tightened.
“So you framed him for stealing forty million.”
Henry looked at him.
“Yes.”
At least the old man admitted it.
“You destroyed your own son.”
“I believed I was protecting thousands of people.”
“You protected yourself.”
“Perhaps.”
“Where is Gabriel?”
Henry said nothing.
Asher’s pulse quickened.
“Where is he?”
“Dead.”
“When?”
“Twenty-seven years ago.”
“How?”
Henry’s face tightened.
“He tried to contact Richard.”
“And?”
“Someone killed him before he could.”
“Someone.”
“Yes.”
“You?”
“No.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
Asher almost respected that answer.
Henry continued.
“Richard spent decades trying to discover who killed his brother.”
“And eventually they killed him too.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Henry looked toward Elias.
“That is the question that matters.”
Asher’s frustration exploded.
“You drag me here, kidnap my son, tell me my family built a blackmail empire, confess to framing my biological father, and still refuse to name the person threatening my children.”
“I don’t know their name.”
“Then what do you know?”
“They call themselves Meridian.”
Asher froze.
“Meridian?”
“Yes.”
That word was familiar.
Lennox Global’s largest recent acquisition involved Meridian Data Systems.
Asher had personally approved it.
“Meridian Data.”
Henry nodded slowly.
“A front.”
Asher’s stomach dropped.
He had brought the enemy directly inside his company.
“Who recommended the acquisition?”
Henry asked.
Asher already knew.
His chief operating officer.
His closest friend since college.
Nathan Cole.
Henry saw recognition on his face.
“There.”
“No.”
“Asher.”
“Nathan has been with me twenty years.”
“So was Judas with Jesus long enough to know where to find him.”
Asher glared.
“Don’t become poetic.”
Henry smiled.
“Fair.”
Asher looked at Elias.
“Why the twins?”
“Because Meridian has a succession problem.”
“What?”
“They believe direct descendants of Gabriel can unlock parts of the old network.”
“Biometrically?”
“Genetically.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It didn’t when I built it. The system has been modernized.”
“By whom?”
“Richard.”
Asher stared.
“My father maintained the network?”
“He tried to convert it into a whistleblower archive.”
That sounded more like Richard.
“Laney’s flash drive?”
“A key.”
“To the archive?”
“Part of one.”
Asher understood.
Everyone wanted the drive because it connected to evidence.
Not just financial fraud.
Decades of secrets.
Henry leaned forward.
“Someone inside Lennox Global wants that archive.”
“Nathan?”
“Possibly.”
“You brought me here with no proof.”
“I brought you here because Richard left me one message before he died.”
“What message?”
Henry opened a drawer.
He removed a phone.
Pressed play.
Richard’s voice filled the room.
Older.
Weaker.
But unmistakable.
“If Asher reaches you, tell him the betrayal began in college. Tell him to remember the fire at Hawthorne Hall.”
Asher went still.
Hawthorne Hall.
His freshman dorm.
A fire twenty years ago.
One student had nearly died.
Nathan Cole.
Asher had carried him from the building.
That night had made them brothers.
Henry stopped the recording.
Asher stared.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Elias began crying.
Asher looked down and adjusted the blanket.
Henry watched him.
“Take your son home.”
“You’re letting us leave?”
“I never intended to keep you.”
Asher stared at Helen.
“She could have mentioned that.”
Henry smiled.
“She enjoys theater.”
Asher turned toward the door.
Henry called after him.
“Asher.”
He stopped.
“Do not confront Nathan alone.”
Asher looked back.
“Why?”
Henry’s expression darkened.
“Because Richard did.”
“And?”
May you like
Henry looked toward the fire.
“That was the last time anyone saw him alive.”
