Chapter 13 - Seventy-Two Hours
We had three days.
Pay the debt.
Refinance it.
Or lose Solmere.
Banks refused to help.
Helena had spent months poisoning our credit relationships.
Investors wanted control in exchange for rescue financing.
I refused.
My mother didn’t die protecting the company so I could hand it to another predator.
Then my father remembered something.
A property.
The original Solmere resort in Maine had never been pledged as collateral.
Its land alone was worth hundreds of millions.
But even that was not enough.
Daniel found a second asset.
The Zurich account.
$214 million stolen from Solmere.
If authorities froze it as criminal proceeds and recognized Solmere as the victim, we could reclaim enough liquidity to bridge refinancing.
We filed emergency petitions in three countries.
Helena tried to block each one.
Forty hours remained.
Then Vanessa disappeared.
Her phone was found inside her apartment.
On her desk was a note.
CHARLOTTE MADE ME DO IT.
I knew immediately.
May you like
Helena was framing me again.
This time with her own daughter.
