CHAPTER 8 — The Voice From Twenty-Five Years Ago
The cassette tape was too fragile to play on ordinary equipment.
Hours later, forensic technicians carefully restored the recording.
Everyone gathered in the evidence room.
Daniel.
The old man.
Federal agents.
Even the chairman, now shackled to a chair, demanded to hear it.
The tape hissed.
Then a familiar voice echoed through the speakers.
Richard Sterling.
Daniel's father.
"If you're hearing this..."
"...I failed to stop them."
Daniel burst into tears.
It was the first time he had heard his father's voice since he was a child.
Richard continued.
"The board betrayed me."
"But they made one mistake."
"They never discovered the real owner of Sterling Global."
The room fell silent.
Daniel frowned.
"What does he mean?"
Then came the sentence that changed everything.
"My shares were never transferred to my son."
Daniel looked stunned.
"Not... me?"
Richard's voice remained calm.
"I transferred every share to the one person I knew would never betray my family."
Everyone slowly turned toward the old man.
He shook his head in disbelief.
"No..."
"Richard... don't do this."
The recording continued.
"If you're listening, my friend..."
"...you are now the legal owner of Sterling Global."
Gasps filled the room.
The homeless man everyone had mocked...
The man security tried to throw into the street...
Had unknowingly become the majority owner of a multi-billion-dollar empire twenty-five years earlier.
The chairman let out a bitter laugh.
"You still don't understand."
Everyone looked at him.
He leaned forward, a chilling smile spreading across his face.
"You think this story is over..."
"...but Richard Sterling isn't the only man who disappeared that night."
Daniel's heart stopped.
"What are you talking about?"
The chairman whispered one final sentence before his lawyer pulled him away.
"Your mother never died in that fire..."
"...and someone has been protecting her identity for the last twenty-five years."
Daniel stood frozen.
May you like
Somewhere...
His mother was still alive.
