CHAPTER 9 "She Finally Found the Man Who Destroyed Her Family... But He Wasn't Waiting to Beg for Mercy."
Victor Bennett had vanished.
Private jets were searched.
Border crossings were alerted.
Nothing.
Forty-eight hours later, Nora received a single message from an unknown number.
Come alone if you want the truth.
Against Adrian's advice, she went.
The abandoned lighthouse overlooked a violent gray sea.
Victor was already there.
Older.
Weaker.
But smiling.
"You came."
Nora's voice shook.
"You murdered my father."
Victor lowered his head.
"No."
"I betrayed him."
"There is a difference."
She stared at him in disbelief.
"What difference?"
"The man who ordered everything..."
"...was never me."
Before Nora could answer, Victor handed her a worn leather notebook.
"I spent twenty years collecting names."
She opened it.
The final page contained only one sentence.
The Chairman is still alive.
A helicopter thundered overhead.
Armed men surrounded the lighthouse.
Victor looked at Nora with desperate eyes.
"I lied to protect myself."
He swallowed hard.
"But your father died protecting you."
Gunfire shattered the windows.
Adrian's security team arrived from the opposite cliff.
The lighthouse became a battlefield.
Victor pushed Nora behind a stone wall just as bullets tore through the room.
He looked at her one final time.
"Tell the world..."
"...I finally chose the right side."
A single shot rang out.
Victor collapsed.
The notebook slipped from his hands.
Inside its back cover was a hidden photograph.
A young Nora.
Her father.
Her grandmother.
And one more person standing beside them.
A smiling businessman no one had suspected.
Written on the back were seven chilling words:
"He built the empire. He ordered everything."
Nora slowly turned the photograph over.
Her face turned pale.
"I know him..."
Adrian took the photo.
For the first time since they had met...
May you like
Even he looked afraid.
TO BE CONTINUED...
