Chapter 16 - A Mother’s Final Bargain
Victoria appeared on Daniel’s phone wearing a dark coat.
Hope cried softly out of view.
“Show me my daughter,” Daniel demanded.
Victoria turned the camera.
Hope lay in a portable infant carrier, wrapped in a hospital blanket.
She was alive.
Elena reached for the phone.
“Don’t touch her.”
Victoria smiled.
“You should be grateful. I saved her from that chaotic hospital.”
“You stole her.”
“I protected the Carter legacy.”
Daniel forced himself to remain calm.
“What do you want?”
“Publicly withdraw every accusation.”
“That won’t stop the evidence.”
“You will say Elena fabricated the documents because she wanted control of the company. You will say Marcus stole the money and manipulated her.”
Elena stared at the screen.
“You’re sacrificing both your sons.”
“I am removing disappointments.”
Daniel finally understood that nothing remained of the mother he had spent his life trying to please.
Perhaps nothing ever had.
“Where do we meet?”
“Bring the original will and sign the statement I send you.”
Victoria gave them an address at an unfinished Carter resort in the mountains.
Police traced the call, but she disconnected too quickly.
The resort had dozens of empty buildings and tunnels.
Brooks prepared tactical teams.
Daniel received Victoria’s written confession statement.
It blamed Elena for fraud, Marcus for embezzlement, and Daniel for Richard’s death.
In exchange for Hope, Victoria wanted her sons to destroy themselves.
Elena read it once.
“She won’t return Hope after you sign.”
“I know.”
“She wants us all erased.”
“I know.”
Elena looked at him.
“Then we make her believe she has won.”
They recorded Daniel reading the statement.
But instead of sending it, they transmitted only a short preview.
Daniel promised to deliver the full video in person.
Victoria accepted.
At dawn, Daniel entered the unfinished resort carrying the original will in a waterproof case.
Elena remained with police in the command vehicle.
Daniel wore a hidden camera and microphone.
Victoria’s voice echoed through an unfinished lobby.
“Place the will on the floor.”
“Let me see Hope.”
A light turned on above the balcony.
Hope’s carrier rested on a table near the railing.
Victoria stood beside it.
Daniel’s heart pounded.
“You brought my daughter near an open edge.”
“She is perfectly safe as long as you obey.”
Daniel placed the case down.
Victoria ordered him to step away.
Then another figure emerged from the shadows.
Marcus.
His hands were tied.
Victoria had taken him from the protected hospital unit.
She pointed a gun at the back of his head.
May you like
“Now choose,” she said. “Your brother or your daughter.”
👉 Daniel’s answer forced Victoria to reveal where she had hidden the trigger controlling the resort’s explosives.
