CHAPTER 5 – “The List of Children Wasn't a Target List… It Was a Billion-Dollar Inheritance Plan.”
The courtroom sat in stunned silence.
No one spoke.
No one even breathed.
The photographs were spread across the evidence table like pieces of a nightmare.
Thirty-seven children.
Different ages.
Different states.
Different families.
Yet every photo had the same words written in Richard Hawthorne's unmistakable handwriting.
"Next Heir."
Reporters rushed toward the front of the courtroom.
The judge ordered everyone to remain seated.
"What do these children have in common?" she demanded.
Agent Cole opened another folder recovered from the hidden vault.
His expression changed instantly.
"They all lost one parent under suspicious circumstances."
A wave of horror swept through the room.
Some children had lost their fathers in mysterious car crashes.
Others had lost their mothers in boating accidents, house fires, or unexplained disappearances.
Each tragedy had been ruled an accident.
Until now.
Richard slowly smiled.
"You still don't understand."
The prosecutor slammed his hand on the table.
"Explain it."
Richard leaned back in his chair.
"It was never about killing."
"It was about ownership."
Confused whispers filled the courtroom.
Agent Cole projected a complex family tree onto the courtroom screen.
Everyone gasped.
Every child in the photographs shared one distant ancestor—a steel tycoon named Henry Blackwood.
More than fifty years earlier, Henry had hidden his fortune inside a private inheritance trust.
The trust contained nearly eight billion dollars.
But there was one impossible condition.
The fortune could only be claimed by the last surviving direct blood heir.
Someone had been eliminating branches of the family tree...
One generation at a time.
Richard hadn't created the game.
He had inherited it.
Then Evelyn's face turned white.
She whispered only one sentence.
"Lily is Henry Blackwood's final living descendant..."
The courtroom erupted.
If that was true...
Lily wasn't just Richard's daughter.
She was the last person standing between him...
And eight billion dollars.
At that exact moment, every light inside the courthouse suddenly went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
People screamed.
Security officers drew their weapons.
Three gunshots echoed through the hallway.
Then came a child's terrified cry.
"Mommy!"
The emergency lights flickered on.
Lily was gone.
Only her tiny bracelet remained on the courtroom floor.
Attached to it was a folded note.
The prosecutor opened it with shaking hands.
May you like
Six chilling words were written in red ink.
"The game has finally begun."
