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Seattle rain tapped against the windows of Cascade Fresh Market with the steady patience of fingers on glass. / Chapter 5 / 7

Chapter 5 - UNEARTHING THE GHOST

The Motel Room SanctuaryThey hid in a run-down motel on the outskirts of Tacoma, where the neon sign flickered against the black sky. Matthew paid the clerk in cash, using an alias he hadn’t used since his college days.

Lily sat on the edge of the squeaky bed, her small hands wrapped around a cup of hot cocoa Matthew had bought from a vending machine.

“Are we bad people now?” she asked, her voice small. “The lady with the clipboard said we broke the law.”

Matthew sat on the floor in front of her, looking up at her tiny face. “No, Lily. We didn't break the law to hurt anyone. We did it to keep you safe. I promised you I wouldn't leave, remember?”

She nodded, pulling the single quarter from her pocket. She held it out to him again. “You can keep it. To make sure.”

Matthew took the coin, his eyes stinging. He slipped it into his vest pocket, right against his heart. “I’ll keep it safe.”

While Lily slept, Matthew opened his laptop. He needed to understand why Alexandra was targeting Sarah Stevens so aggressively. It couldn't just be about a minor health insurance claim. Alexandra was a predator; she didn't waste her energy on small prey.

He began digging into Cascade’s historical archives, bypassing the public servers and accessing the encrypted legacy database his father, the founder of Cascade, had left behind.

What he found made his breath catch in his throat.

Matthew stared at the screen, his mind reeling.

Sarah Stevens wasn't a stranger. She was his half-sister.

His father, Richard Reynolds, had had a secret first marriage before meeting Matthew’s mother. When Richard died, he had left the majority of the company’s voting shares to Sarah in a blind trust, to be activated only if the company attempted a hostile merger or if Matthew was removed from his position.

Alexandra had discovered this.

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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...

She knew that if Sarah were to die of her illness, the shares would automatically revert to the corporate treasury, allowing Alexandra to seize complete control of the company through the Vanguard merger.

She was systematically murdering Matthew’s sister to steal his father’s legacy.

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