Chapter 10 - The Marriage That Should Not Exist
We moved into Owen’s pickup before the alley could be surrounded.
Samuel lay across the back seat, pressing a cloth against the cut near his collar. Rachel sat beside him. I held the blue ledger on my lap.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“A secure apartment,” Owen said.
“No. We go to Megan.”
“That video was bait.”
“She may still be alive.”
“And you may be worth eighteen million dollars to whoever made it.”
“She is not expendable because I am frightened.”
Owen met my eyes in the rearview mirror.
“That sentence is exactly how they’ll control you.”
I hated him for being right.
Samuel reached forward and handed me a copy of my marriage certificate from a plastic sleeve inside his coat.
“The seal is Megan’s,” he said. “The signature isn’t.”
The witness signature belonged to a woman named Helen Ward.
I knew the name.
“She worked for my grandmother.”
“She managed the private trust office,” Samuel said.
“She died before my wedding.”
“Six months before.”
I looked again.
The document had been notarized three days after Helen’s death.
“Then the marriage record is fraudulent.”
“Not necessarily invalid,” Samuel said. “The ceremony occurred, and you both intended to marry. But the false notarization created a hidden legal vulnerability.”
“For whom?”
“For you. Julian could challenge the marriage if it stopped benefiting him, while still using it when it did.”
A contract designed to exist in whichever form gave him power.
My phone showed eleven forty-two.
Eighteen minutes until midnight.
I called Megan.
No answer.
I called again.
The third time, someone picked up.
Breathing.
“Megan?”
A whisper came through.
“Don’t bring the ledger.”
“Where are you?”
“Samuel’s office.”
“Are you alone?”
The line rustled.
“No.”
A man spoke in the background.
“Tell her the page is all we need.”
The call ended.
Owen turned the pickup toward downtown.
“You said it was bait,” Rachel said.
“It is.”
“Then why are we going?”
“Because they expect us to hesitate.”
He opened the glove box and removed a small surveillance receiver.
“Samuel’s office has an independent camera system.”
Samuel shook his head. “Mercer disabled it.”
“The visible system, yes.”
Owen’s receiver displayed four grainy views: lobby, hallway, records room, private office.
Megan sat tied to a chair.
A masked man stood behind her.
Another person moved near the file cabinets.
A woman.
Her face remained outside the camera angle, but her cream silk blouse and pearl necklace were unmistakable.
Eleanor.
“She left the mansion,” I said.
“And arrived before us,” Rachel replied.
The feed flickered.
In the hallway camera, Julian entered Samuel’s office carrying my red-light decoy recorder.
He removed his suit jacket, wrapped it around his hand, and smashed the device against the wall.
“He still thinks that’s the evidence,” I said.
Owen slowed near the building.
“That gives us an advantage.”
Then the private-office feed zoomed closer on its own.
Eleanor looked directly into the hidden camera.
She smiled.
“She knows,” I whispered.
The image changed to a live view from inside Owen’s pickup.
All four of us appeared on the screen.
A camera was mounted somewhere in the vehicle.
Owen slammed on the brakes.
Before anyone could move, the locks clicked down.
The engine shut off.
And Eleanor’s voice came through the truck speakers.
“Thank you for gathering everyone who still knows the truth.”
May you like
A sweet chemical odor began flowing from the air vents.
📖 See how Clara escapes Eleanor’s sealed vehicle trap—and what precious evidence she loses in CHAPTER 11. 👇
