Chapter 9 - Plan B
Bianca disappeared that afternoon.
Her phone went dead.
Her car was found outside an abandoned office building.
No blood.
No sign of violence.
Just her handbag on the passenger seat.
Inside was a note.
I lied about everything.
There are no files.
Leave Victor alone.
Sophie stared at it.
“She didn’t write this.”
Adrian agreed.
“How do you know?”
“She dots her i’s with circles.”
Adrian almost smiled.
“You noticed that?”
“She wrote the accusation statement against me.”
His smile disappeared.
Right.
Sophie continued.
“This note doesn’t.”
Adrian contacted investigators.
This was no longer private family scandal.
Financial records, threats, arson, disappearance.
The matter widened quickly.
Victor responded publicly.
He accused Adrian of staging a campaign against him before the board vote.
By evening, financial news outlets were reporting that Blackwood Group faced internal allegations.
The board called an emergency meeting.
Seventy-two hours remained.
If Adrian lost control before the restructuring vote, Victor could become interim chairman.
Sophie understood the design.
“You expose the ledger now, he says it’s fake.”
“Yes.”
“You stay silent, he takes control.”
“Yes.”
“Bianca disappears, so the only witness connecting him to the scheme is gone.”
Adrian nodded.
“And Mason controls enough security systems to erase whatever Victor needs erased.”
Sophie opened Grace’s diary again.
Thomas hid it before the fire.
The original proof.
Not the ledger under Charles’s study.
Something else.
“What did my father do at Blackwood?”
“Security engineer.”
“What kind?”
“Physical security. Vaults. Access systems.”
Sophie looked around.
“Then he wouldn’t hide evidence in a desk.”
Adrian understood.
“He’d hide it somewhere only security knew existed.”
They searched old blueprints.
Blackwood Manor had been renovated repeatedly.
One sealed chamber appeared in plans from twenty years earlier.
A security room beneath the wine cellar.
Adrian had never seen it.
They entered after midnight.
Dust covered everything.
Old monitors.
Switchboards.
Metal cabinets.
And one safe.
Sophie entered Thomas Reed’s employee number from an old payroll file.
Nothing.
Then she tried Grace’s birthday.
Nothing.
Finally she remembered the numbers on the postcard.
4-17-29.
The safe opened.
Inside sat one videotape.
One envelope.
One cassette recorder.
And a wedding ring.
Sophie picked up the ring.
T.R.
Thomas Reed.
Her father.
Her throat tightened.
Adrian placed the old cassette into a player.
Static.
Then a man’s voice.
Thomas.
“If Grace is listening, I’m sorry.”
Sophie covered her mouth.
She had never heard her father’s voice.
Thomas continued.
“Victor found out Charles and I copied the audit.”
Static cracked.
“I moved the original evidence.”
A pause.
“If the fire happens before I get back…”
His breathing quickened.
“Grace, don’t trust Mason.”
Sophie looked at Adrian.
Mason had worked for Blackwood security even then.
Thomas continued.
“He’s feeding Victor schedules and access codes.”
Then:
“But Mason is not the one Charles is afraid of.”
Static.
“The other person is—”
The tape stopped.
Sophie stared at the player.
“No.”
Adrian rewound it.
Same result.
The final section had been deliberately erased.
But inside the envelope was a single photograph.
Charles Blackwood shaking hands with someone outside a courthouse.
On the back Thomas had written:
THIS IS THE PERSON WHO CONTROLS VICTOR.
Sophie turned the photograph over.
Adrian’s face went blank.
The person standing beside Charles was not Victor.
It was Marcus Hale.
May you like
The family lawyer they had assumed worked for Victor.
Apparently, Victor had been working for him.
