Chapter 13 - TRAVIS COLE TELLS THE TRUTH
Travis asked to meet me without lawyers.
I almost refused.
Then I agreed.
We met in a coffee shop where nobody knew either of us.
He looked different.
No luxury suit.
No confidence.
“My bank fired me.”
I stirred my coffee.
“I’m supposed to feel sorry?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I deserved consequences.”
I looked at him.
“What do you want?”
“To tell you everything.”
“Start with why you asked about my job.”
He nodded.
“Madison had told me you were unstable.”
Of course she had.
“She said you hated the family.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know that now.”
“She said you had delusions that they were hiding money from you.”
My laugh was sharp.
“They were.”
“Yes.”
He looked down.
“I had already seen references to a possible Vale heir in internal documents.”
“So you tested me.”
“Yes.”
“With questions about my life.”
“Yes.”
“You thought a social worker couldn’t be an heiress?”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“I thought you didn’t fit the profile Madison had given me.”
“What profile?”
“Jealous.”
My expression hardened.
“Materialistic.”
I nearly laughed.
“Obsessed with status.”
“Stop.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
I leaned closer.
“You don’t get to apologize quickly and feel clean.”
His face tightened.
“I know.”
“Why did you laugh?”
That was the real question.
He stared through the window.
“Because everyone else laughed.”
Pathetic.
He knew it.
“I spent my entire career trying to belong in powerful rooms.”
His voice was quiet.
“I learned that when powerful people laugh, junior people laugh too.”
“You were thirty-four.”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t a child.”
“No.”
“And when my mother hit me, you still chose the room.”
“Yes.”
For the first time, I believed his apology because he stopped defending himself.
He handed me a flash drive.
“What is this?”
“Everything I downloaded before they terminated me.”
“Legally?”
“My attorney will argue that.”
Despite myself, I almost smiled.
“What’s on it?”
“Internal transaction reports connected to Sloane.”
“And Marcus?”
“Especially Marcus.”
The files showed more than bribery.
Marcus had borrowed against Vale assets.
Hidden losses.
Manipulated valuations.
Used Sloane-controlled entities to conceal nearly nine hundred million dollars in exposure.
If I inherited Alexandra’s voting block, an independent audit could expose him.
That was why I had to disappear.
Not because of some ancient family feud.
Because a greedy man needed to keep stealing.
Travis stood.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“You asked why I looked terrified when I saw the pendant.”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t just your identity.”
He looked embarrassed.
“My bank had received a direct legal warning from Vale counsel months earlier.”
“About what?”
“If the missing heir appeared, no employee was to advise, influence, transport, restrain, or enter into financial arrangements with her without independent counsel.”
I stared.
“And you were sitting in a room while people restrained me.”
“Yes.”
“You thought your career was over.”
“Yes.”
“So your sudden conscience began with fear.”
He didn’t look away.
“Yes.”
That answer mattered.
I didn’t forgive him.
But I believed him.
Later that night, Madison sent me one photograph.
A page from Mom’s planner.
May 18 circled in red.
Beneath it:
9:00 A.M. — EMERGENCY GUARDIANSHIP
1:30 P.M. — VALE COUNSEL
11:00 P.M. — C.W. CONTINGENCY
I called Ruiz.
“What does C.W. contingency mean?”
She went silent.
Then she told me.
Police had searched Charles’s storage unit.
Inside they found a vehicle.
Fake plates.
Sedatives.
Rope.
May you like
And a prepared route to the Canadian border.
If the legal plan failed, my father intended to make me disappear all over again.
