Chapter 15 - The Will Beneath the Floor
The family lake house stood silent beneath heavy snow.
Rebecca’s agents surrounded the property, but the front door was already open.
Inside, drawers had been torn apart. Paintings lay slashed across the floor.
Daniel led Lena toward Arthur’s old study.
A section of the wood paneling had been removed. Behind it was a stone staircase descending beneath the house.
At the bottom, they found Evelyn kneeling before a small vault.
The blue stone ring glowed against its lock.
She turned as they entered.
“You always did arrive too late, Daniel.”
The vault door stood open.
Inside was Arthur’s original will, signed witness statements, and a recorded declaration.
Arthur had discovered Evelyn’s financial crimes shortly before his death. He amended the ownership structure of Cross Holdings.
Upon his death, Daniel would manage the company.
But permanent ownership would pass to Daniel’s first child.
If Daniel had no child, the shares would go to a public charitable trust—not Evelyn.
She had never been the heir.
Hope had inherited the controlling interest the moment she was born.
Evelyn held a lighter beneath the will.
Daniel stopped several feet away.
“Burning it won’t change the digital copies.”
“There are no digital copies.”
Lena raised her phone.
“There are now.”
She had streamed the entire discovery to Rebecca’s evidence server the moment they entered.
Evelyn’s face collapsed.
“You think a baby can run an empire?”
“No,” Daniel said. “But her parents can protect it until she chooses her own life.”
Evelyn looked at Lena with naked hatred.
“You were supposed to disappear.”
Lena stepped forward.
“You took my home, my name, my husband, and the birth of my child. But you never made me disappear.”
Evelyn threw the burning document toward the open vault and ran for the side tunnel.
Agents pursued her.
A gunshot echoed outside.
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Then the frozen lake cracked beneath someone’s weight.
👉 Evelyn’s final escape led onto the same lake where she had once planned to dispose of Lena forever.
