Chapter 10 - The Woman Who Raised Him
Lucas refused to believe it.
Margaret had protected him as a child.
She had hidden the escape tunnel.
She had saved Emma in the study.
But Evelyn’s code was deliberate.
M.D.
Emma stood beside the hospital window, hugging Lucas’s coat around herself.
“What does it say?”
Lucas folded the paper.
“That we’re not safe yet.”
His phone vibrated.
A call from the mansion’s landline.
Margaret.
Lucas answered.
“Harold escaped,” she said.
Her breathing was heavy.
“How?”
“One of his men came through the servants’ corridor. I shot him. Harold got the keys.”
Lucas looked at the initials again.
“Where are you?”
“In the study.”
“Put Harold on.”
Silence.
Then Margaret’s voice softened.
“Lucas, what did Evelyn tell you?”
The wrong question.
She had not asked whether Evelyn was alive.
She wanted to know what Evelyn had revealed.
Lucas’s chest tightened.
“Why?”
“Because she was frightened. Frightened people confuse things.”
Behind Margaret’s voice, Lucas heard a faint metallic ticking.
His father’s antique clock.
But the clock was not in the study.
It sat inside Margaret’s private cottage at the edge of the estate.
She was lying about her location.
Lucas lowered his voice.
“You helped Evelyn disappear.”
“I did.”
“You also told Harold where she was.”
Margaret stopped breathing.
Emma watched Lucas’s face.
“What happened?” she whispered.
Margaret finally spoke.
“I loved your father.”
Lucas closed his eyes.
The truth came together.
Margaret had served the Blackwood family for decades. She had watched Lucas’s father choose business, power, and younger women over her loyalty.
Harold had offered her something Lucas’s father never had.
Importance.
Margaret’s voice trembled.
“He promised me your father would only be removed from the company. He never said he would kill him.”
“But you gave Harold his route.”
“I was angry.”
“You gave him Evelyn too.”
“I tried to save her.”
“You hid her until Harold needed her found.”
Margaret began crying.
“I protected Emma.”
“Because you needed the evidence.”
The line went silent.
Then Harold’s voice replaced hers.
“Very good.”
Lucas looked toward Evelyn’s sealed hospital room.
Harold continued.
“Bring the memory card to the old Blackwood shipyard. Come alone, or Margaret dies.”
Lucas’s expression hardened.
Margaret screamed in the background.
Harold laughed.
May you like
“Oh, and Lucas? I have the original files. Evelyn’s little recording can destroy me—but my records can destroy everyone carrying the Blackwood name.”
👉 Harold had taken Margaret hostage and lured Lucas toward the shipyard, but Lucas now had to decide whether saving one traitor was worth risking his daughter’s future.
