Chapter 5
I threw up in the parking lot of Sarah’s office, my hands shaking so bad I could barely hold the phone.
She’d been standing over my daughter.
Her hand over her throat.
I called the security team, screaming at them to get to the house, to get Mia out, to arrest Elena.
Marcus called me back two minutes later, his voice tight.
“Elena’s already moved her,” he said. “She took her to the penthouse downtown. The one with the private elevator, the one no one can get into without her key card. Our men are posted outside every exit. No one’s getting in or out. She’s safe for now. But we can’t get to her without a warrant.”
I drove to the penthouse, parking across the street, staring up at the floor where Mia was, feeling helpless, feeling like the worst mother in the world.
Elena dropped the custody order the next morning, like she’d promised.
A social worker brought Mia to Rosa’s house an hour later, and I held her for three hours straight, not letting go, not even to get a glass of water.
She was quiet for days after that.
She flinched when someone raised their voice.
She had nightmares every night, screaming that Elena was standing over her bed.
She refused to sleep alone, crawling into my bed every night, clinging to my shirt like she was scared I’d disappear when she closed her eyes.
I worked around the clock.
Marcus got me another 3% of Langford, bringing my total to 25.2%.
Arthur filed the secret will in probate court, starting the process to have Elena’s forgery thrown out.
Sarah got a judge to sign a warrant for Elena’s arrest for the murder of Richard Langford, but we held it, waiting for the right moment.
The delayed board meeting to vote on the Halewood merger was scheduled for two weeks to the day after Daddy’s funeral.
I spent every day going through Langford’s books, finding more and more evidence of Elena’s theft: forty million dollars siphoned to offshore accounts, fake contracts, kickbacks from every vendor, money she’d used to pay off judges, reporters, cops, anyone who got in her way.
Two days before the board meeting, Elena’s brother Mark showed up at my door.
Mark was ten years older than Elena, the COO of Langford, the man who’d been by her side through every lie, every theft, every dirty deal.
I’d always hated him.
He stood on the porch, his face bruised, his suit torn, holding a thick stack of papers in his hand.
“I know you hate me,” he said, before I could slam the door in his face. “And you have every right. But I’m not here to fight. I’m here to help. She tried to kill me last night.”
He pulled his shirt up, showing me a long, stitched cut running down his side.
“I found out she’s been stealing from me too,” he said, stepping inside when I moved aside. “Fifteen million dollars from my trust fund, over the last five years. I confronted her last night. She stabbed me with a kitchen knife and said if I told anyone, she’d kill my wife and kids. I have proof of everything. All the kickbacks, all the bribes, the hitman she paid to tamper with Richard’s car brakes six months before she poisoned him—she tried twice, you know. The first time the brakes failed on the highway, but Richard walked away without a scratch. So she did the powder the second time.”
He handed me the stack of papers.
Emails.
Bank records.
Text messages between Elena and the hitman.
Everything.
“Why are you doing this?” I said, flipping through the pages, my blood running cold at how many times she’d tried to kill Daddy.
“Because she’s a monster,” he said, his voice breaking. “She’s my sister, but she’s a monster. And I’m not going to let her kill anyone else. I’ll testify against her. I’ll tell the board everything. I’ll help you take her down. I just want my family to be safe.”
I nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “You’re with us. But if you betray me? I’ll make sure you go to jail right next to her.”
He agreed.
The next day, the day before the board meeting, Elena struck back.
I was picking Mia up from school, walking her to the car, when three police cars pulled up, sirens blaring.
Two officers ran over, cuffed me in front of Mia and the whole school playground, and told me I was under arrest for possession of a controlled substance.
They’d found three bags of cocaine in the trunk of my car, planted there by Elena’s men.
Mia screamed, clinging to my leg, begging them not to take me away, as the officers pried her off and led me to the police car.
I looked back as they put me in the back seat.
Elena was standing across the street, leaning against her black SUV, smiling, waving at me like we were old friends.
I was booked, fingerprinted, thrown in a holding cell.
My bail was set at two million dollars.
I was sitting on the cold concrete bench, staring at the wall, when the guard banged on the door and told me I had a call.
It was Marcus.
His voice was panicked.
“Clara,” he said. “Elena hacked into Voss Capital’s main server last night. She stole all our client data—bank records, social security numbers, trade secrets, everything. She’s going to release it to the dark web in twenty-four hours if we don’t drop all charges against her, pull the will from probate, and sign over all your Langford shares to her. If she releases it, our clients will be ruined. The firm will collapse. You’ll be personally liable for billions in damages. You’ll lose everything.”
I sat there, the cold concrete seeping through my pants, my mind racing.
I had twenty-four hours.
Twenty-four hours to save my firm.
Twenty-four hours to save Langford.
Twenty-four hours to save Mia.
And Elena was holding all the cards.
Or so she thought.
May you like
I smiled, cold and sharp, even though my chest was tight with fear.
“Tell the tech team to trace the hack,” I said. “I know exactly who did it. And I know exactly how to flip him.”
