Chapter 4 - THE FIRST MILLION
Victor called Blackwood Holdings’ controller from the nursery.
He did not put the call on speaker.
He didn’t need to.
I could read his face.
“What do you mean, more?” he asked.
A pause.
“How much?”
His eyes closed briefly.
“When did you find this?”
Another pause.
“Send everything to my personal attorney. Not company email.”
He ended the call.
I waited.
Victor looked at Ethan before answering me.
“Four point two million dollars.”
I almost thought I had misunderstood.
“From Serena’s company?”
“Not directly.”
He took the red folder from Daniel.
“Seven vendors. Different names. Different services. Events, logistics, security, transportation.”
“But connected?”
“They appear to be.”
“To Serena?”
“We don’t know yet.”
I looked toward the hallway.
“I think she does.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
“That is not proof.”
“No. But dragging your son across a floor thirty seconds after someone disables the camera isn’t exactly a bookkeeping mistake.”
He didn’t answer.
I hated that silence.
Not because I thought he was defending Serena.
Because I suddenly understood how difficult it would be for him to accept what the evidence might mean.
Serena wasn’t a stranger.
She had been living in the mansion for five months.
The wedding was scheduled for October.
Her clothes filled the east dressing room.
Her photograph sat on the piano.
She had chosen flowers for Ethan’s upcoming baptism celebration.
Victor had trusted her inside his son’s life.
Daniel’s phone rang.
He stepped into the hall.
Victor crouched in front of me.
“You need a doctor.”
“I’m fine.”
“You were kicked hard enough to hit the floor.”
“And Ethan?”
“A pediatrician is coming.”
“Then I’m staying.”
His eyes met mine.
“I’m not asking.”
“Neither am I.”
For the first time since I had met him, Victor almost smiled.
It disappeared immediately.
Daniel returned.
“Graham’s car is gone.”
Victor stood.
“You said he never exited.”
“He didn’t through a monitored door.”
“How did he leave?”
“We found the answer.”
Daniel showed us a camera image from the service garage.
At 1:31—eight minutes after the attack—a black sedan exited through the gate.
No footage showed anyone approaching it because the garage corridor camera had been disabled during the same eleven-minute window.
The plate belonged to Graham.
Victor stared at the timestamp.
Serena had been downstairs with us.
Graham had fled while she kept everyone occupied.
That was the first real answer.
She had not acted alone.
Graham Cole had been in the mansion.
He had helped blind the cameras.
And he had escaped.
But the reason he ran became more important seconds later when Victor’s phone buzzed.
An email from his controller had arrived.
Attached was the payment ledger.
At the bottom of one page, beneath three fraudulent transfers, appeared the digital approval of Victor Blackwood.
Victor had approved money he swore he had never seen.
Someone wasn’t merely stealing from him.
May you like
Someone had learned how to become him.
📖 We finally knew Graham was involved, but proving how he forged Victor’s authority forced us to examine the one device he had accessed beside Ethan’s crib. 👇
