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HE KICKED HIS OWN MOTHER FOR A TRUST FUND—But He Didn't Know Who I Actually Was. / Chapter 4 / 6

Chapter 4 - The Counter-Gambit

Arthur tipped the vial toward the IV line. I watched the clear fluid enter the tube, moving steadily toward my vein.

“You always did underestimate the people from the country, Arthur,” I said, my voice completely flat.

Arthur paused, his hand still on the tube. “What?”

Suddenly, the door to the hospital room didn’t just open—it was kicked off its hinges.

A team of heavily armed operatives, wearing black uniforms with no insignias, flooded the room. Before Arthur could even drop the vial, he was tackled to the floor, his face slammed against the linoleum.

I pulled the IV needle out of my arm, tossing it aside. The heart monitor’s rapid beeping was a recording I had set up on my phone, which was hooked up to the room's Bluetooth speaker. I sat up, completely fine. The pain I had felt in the greenhouse was real, but the "relapse" was entirely staged.

Agent Vance walked in, holding a tablet. “We got it all, Director. His confession, the digital signature on the crypto-transfer, and the exact IP address of his hidden ledger.”

Arthur looked up from the floor, his face bruised and covered in dust. “How? The FBI doesn't have this kind of jurisdiction! Who are these men?”

“These aren't FBI, Arthur,” I said, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “When I retired from the government, I didn't just go to a farm. I founded a private international asset-recovery firm. The government calls us when they can’t legally cross borders to get their money back. You thought you were playing chess with a retired old woman. You forgot that I built the board.”

I walked over to him, stepping squarely on his hand—the same hand he had used to try and poison me. He groaned in pain.

“Daniel thought he was using my biometrics,” I continued, leaning down. “But the phone he accessed was a decoy. The digital signature he approved didn’t send your money to a crypto-ledger. It sent it directly into a federal seizure escrow account. You are completely bankrupt, Arthur. Every house, every yacht, every dollar. Gone.”

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The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure terminal on my desk flashed a violent crimson. I hadn't slept in thirty-six hours, my eyes burning from staring at columns of ghost figures, duplicate invoices, and shell corporations linked to Dominic Rossi. But the red alert wasn’t from Rossi’s faction. It was an internal security flag originating from the estate’s main vault deep beneath the west wing.

The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure ter...

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scattering the light from the chandeliers. The muffled laughter died instantly, replaced by a suffocating, heavy silence that crept outward from the grand staircase.

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scatter...

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking out the clinical, terrifying silence of the kitchen. Evelyn Crane stood stiffly in front of my mahogany desk, her hands folded over her apron with the rigid precision of someone who had spent decades micromanaging every square inch of my estate. Behind her, Norah hovered near the doorway, clutching her clipboard like a shield.

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking...

Arthur’s eyes widened in sheer horror. “No… no, Daniel promised me it worked!”

“Daniel is a fool who inherited his father's lack of intellect,” I said. “And speaking of my son, bring him in.”

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