Chapter 4 - The Man Called Alden
While Evelyn searched for Rose, Adrian Whitmore was constructing a lie.
The identity of Alden Whitmore had taken four years to create.
Adrian hired a theatrical prosthetics artist who once worked in film. He studied the movement of elderly men, altered his voice, and used a cane to change his posture.
He built a financial history around offshore investments inherited from a fictional uncle.
To the Carter family, Alden appeared to be a private billionaire with no children, no close relatives, and more money than time.
Richard saw an easy solution.
Grant saw a gullible old man.
Neither recognized the son of the man they had ruined.
Adrian’s original plan was ruthless but precise.
He would purchase the Carter debt.
Demand Evelyn as part of the agreement.
Use the marriage to gain legal access to the family’s private holdings.
Then expose Richard and Grant before taking control of their company.
He chose Evelyn because she was the youngest Carter child and appeared to have the least influence.
He believed she would obey.
But during the engagement dinner, Adrian watched her more closely.
Evelyn never asked about his money.
She refused every piece of jewelry he offered except the necklace her family forced her to wear.
When Richard spoke, Evelyn listened to the pauses between his words.
When Grant entered the room, her hand moved protectively over her purse.
Adrian also noticed that she placed a small recording device beneath the table.
After dinner, he had his security expert recover the audio remotely.
On it, Richard warned Grant that “the Rose problem” had to be handled before the wedding.
Adrian had known Rose Carter decades earlier.
She had once tried to defend his father.
If Rose was alive and willing to speak, she could prove Richard’s fraud.
Adrian began following Grant.
He discovered the ambulance.
The abandoned rehabilitation center.
And the private security guards being paid through Carter accounts.
But before he could rescue Rose, Evelyn arrived there alone.
Adrian watched from a parked car as she slipped through a broken side entrance.
May you like
Then he saw Grant’s men follow her inside.
👉 Evelyn thought she had found her grandmother, but the locked building had been prepared as a trap for anyone who came searching.
