Chapter 10 - The False Victory
I stared at Daniel Price in utter, paralyzing disbelief.
My mind violently scrambled to make sense of the lawyer standing before me with a loaded gun.
"Daniel?" I choked out, my voice trembling.
"Where is Uncle Arthur?"
Daniel laughed, a dry and highly hollow sound that echoed loudly through the empty factory.
"Arthur has been completely dead for three years, Evelyn."
"He truly did die of a massive heart attack while in hiding."
Daniel pointed the pistol very casually toward my crying daughter.
"I simply used his feared name and his idiot daughter to completely manipulate your husband."
"Why would you do this?" I demanded, warm tears streaming down my face.
"Because your father left the entire company to you instead of the man who actually built it for him."
Daniel took a slow, highly calculated step closer to me.
"I spent twenty-two long years cleaning up your father's messes, and he left me absolutely nothing."
"So I finally decided to take it all for myself."
"Grant was incredibly easy to manipulate with a pretty, eager blonde assistant."
"And you were incredibly easy to blind with your deep trust in me."
I slowly lowered the brown envelope to my side.
"You personally orchestrated the forged signature, the fake pregnancy, and the hostile takeover."
"Yes," Daniel admitted proudly.
"Now, securely slide those original documents across the floor to me."
"If you do exactly as I say, you and Sophie get to walk out of here alive."
I looked at my terrified daughter, who was trembling violently in the wooden chair.
I knew Daniel was lying; he could never let us live after confessing to everything.
I slowly knelt down and placed the envelope flat on the concrete floor.
I slid it hard, sending it spinning rapidly across the thick dust toward his expensive Italian shoes.
Daniel eagerly looked down at the moving envelope for a split second.
That was all the precious time I needed.
I quickly pulled the small, pearl-handled revolver from my coat pocket that I had taken from Grant's nightstand that morning.
I aimed directly at Daniel's chest and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
The loud gunshot was completely deafening inside the metal building.
Daniel gasped loudly and dropped his weapon, clutching his aggressively bleeding shoulder.
He fell heavily to his knees in pure, agonizing shock.
I ran forward quickly, kicked his gun far away into the darkness, and rapidly untied my daughter.
"Mommy's got you," I whispered softly, holding Sophie incredibly tight against my chest.
Police sirens began to wail loudly in the distance, growing much closer by the second.
Grant had completely ignored my strict orders and called the police anyway.
Within minutes, heavily armed SWAT officers violently swarmed the factory and dragged a bleeding Daniel away in handcuffs.
Grant arrived moments later, falling desperately to his knees and hugging both me and Sophie tightly.
The terrible nightmare was finally over.
By the end of the day, Daniel was heavily charged with kidnapping, massive extortion, and attempted murder.
Vanessa was dramatically arrested at the airport while trying to flee the country with stolen corporate funds.
Grant had completely surrendered, signing a full, humiliating confession and legally relinquishing all his company shares to me.
I had successfully won the war, saved my daughter, and permanently secured my empire.
I put Sophie to bed safely that night in our quiet, highly secure home, feeling a profound sense of total victory.
I walked slowly back to my bedroom and poured a glass of water to take my daily prenatal vitamins.
I turned on the television to casually watch the late-night news coverage of Daniel's arrest.
The stern anchorwoman was reporting live from directly outside the city jail.
"In a shocking turn of events, high-profile attorney Daniel Price has been found dead in his holding cell," she announced gravely.
My glass of water instantly slipped from my hand and shattered violently across the hardwood floor.
"Authorities have officially ruled it a homicide, noting that a massive bribe was paid from a secure offshore account to secure the assassin's access."
The bright screen suddenly flashed an image of the financial transfer document successfully retrieved by the FBI.
My breath caught painfully in my throat as I saw the exact signature authorizing the hit.
May you like
It was signed perfectly in my own handwriting, using the exact offshore account I had secretly opened for my unborn baby.
Someone else had been aggressively playing us all from the very beginning, and they had just successfully framed me for murder.
