Chapter 8 - VICTORIA’S LAST GAME
Z
The lipstick mark was not Victoria’s signature.
At least, that was what I told myself.
Victoria had been sentenced to probation, restitution, and mandatory cooperation after giving investigators information about Julian, Eleanor, and Richard. She had lost everything: her apartment, her social circle, her reputation, and every illusion she had once carried into my hospital room.
But I knew better than to confuse punishment with transformation.
People like Victoria did not become harmless because they became desperate.
Security cameras had been disabled for exactly seven minutes the night the message appeared in Hazel’s nursery. The intruder had entered through the service gate using an access code known only to three people: me, Sarah, and the former head of security.
The former head of security had resigned two months earlier.
His name was Grant Mercer.
And he had worked for Vance Development for fourteen years.
When detectives brought him in for questioning, he denied everything. He said he had lost his access card, forgotten old passwords, and had no idea who might have used his credentials.
Then Sarah found a payment.
Twenty thousand dollars had been transferred into Grant’s personal account from a company called Cole Strategic Holdings.
The name made my stomach turn.
Daniel Cole.
My biological father.
Or someone using his name.
The company had been registered only six weeks earlier.
Someone was rebuilding the same web Richard Hale had used for years.
And they were using my family’s secrets as weapons.
Three days later, Victoria called me from an unknown number.
“I know who did it,” she said.
I almost hung up.
“Then tell Detective Ramirez.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’ll kill me.”
I went still.
Victoria’s voice was shaking. Not theatrical. Not manipulative.
Real fear.
“They said if I talked to police, they would release everything about you,” she whispered. “The DNA report. Your mother. Your father. They want the board to think you’re unstable. They want shareholders to panic.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know his real name. Julian called him The Broker.”
I remembered Julian’s obsession with access, ownership, hidden accounts. Richard had been the architect, but perhaps someone else had been the financier.
“What does he want?” I asked.
“You.”
That evening, I met Victoria in the private dining room of a closed restaurant. Sarah insisted on coming, and two officers remained outside. Victoria arrived wearing a dark hoodie, no makeup, and a terrified expression.
For the first time, she looked human.
“I didn’t write that message,” she said before sitting down. “I swear.”
“You expect me to trust you?”
“No,” she said. “But I need you to believe I’m scared.”
She placed a flash drive on the table.
“Julian kept copies of everything. Emails. Calls. Financial records. He thought he was smarter than Richard. He thought he had leverage over everyone.”
Sarah picked up the drive.
“What’s on this?” she asked.
“Audio files. One of them is from the week before your labor.”
I felt the room tilt.
Sarah opened her laptop and played the recording.
Julian’s voice filled the room.
“He doesn’t care about Genevieve,” Julian said. “He cares about the shares.”
Another male voice replied.
“That’s why she has to be discredited first.”
“Her father left protections.”
“Then make the board doubt her. Make the public doubt her. A woman with postpartum trauma, family secrets, a criminal husband—it writes itself.”
I could not recognize the second voice.
Then Victoria spoke.
“That man is The Broker.”
“Who is he?”
She looked at me, and for the first time, I saw guilt in her eyes.
“I met him once,” she said. “At Julian’s office. He wore a gray suit. He had a scar on his hand. Julian called him Mr. Cole.”
Sarah and I exchanged a look.
Not Daniel Cole.
Someone pretending to be him.
Before we could ask another question, Victoria’s phone rang.
She looked at the screen and turned white.
“What is it?” I asked.
She did not answer.
The restaurant lights went out.
A second later, glass shattered from the front window.
Victoria screamed.
A bullet struck the wall behind her.
Security rushed in. Sarah pulled me down behind the table. Outside, tires screeched against wet pavement.
By the time police reached the street, the shooter was gone.
Victoria was alive, but the message was clear.
Someone had been watching.
Someone knew where we were.
And someone was willing to kill to keep the truth buried.
Later that night, Detective Ramirez showed me a still image from a traffic camera near the restaurant.
A man in a gray suit had stood across the street moments before the shooting.
His face was partially hidden.
But his left hand was visible.
May you like
Across the back of it was a long, jagged scar.
And on his finger, he wore my mother’s missing wedding band.
