Chapter 5 - THE SISTER’S INHERITANCE"Aunt Beatrice?" Ethan’s voice cracked, the betrayal hitting him harder than any physical blow. "You... you helped Marcus? You've been leaking our accounts to the Vance family?"
Beatrice let out a low, humorless chuckle, setting her teacup down on a small side table with a faint clink.
"Family, Ethan? Please. Grant built this empire on the corpses of my husband’s shipping company thirty years ago," Beatrice said, her eyes flashing with a lifetime of pent-up hatred. "He kept me around as the charming, harmless decorative aunt, while he systematically stripped away my inheritance, piece by piece, ledger by ledger."
She raised the Walther, keeping the barrel pointed steadily at my chest. I kept my weight balanced on the balls of my feet, calculating the distance between us—fourteen feet. Too far to disarm her before she could squeeze the trigger.
"And you hired the hitman," I stated flatly, keeping her talking while my left hand subtly drifted toward the flash-bang grenade clipped to my tactical belt.
"Not a hitman, dear. A correction," Beatrice corrected smoothly. "Ethan needed to be removed so the board of directors would panic and liquidate the corporation. Once the company goes public under emergency receivership, the Vance family buys up the controlling shares, and I finally get my fifty percent stake back."
She tilted her head, studying me with a look of genuine curiosity. "Director Whitaker told me you were a liability. A clumsy girl who couldn't even keep her balance in the lobby. He was right about your clumsiness, but he severely underestimated your stubbornness."
"Whitaker?" Ethan stared at her, stunned. "Director Whitaker of the national security agency is in on this?"
"Of course he is," Beatrice smiled, a chilling, triumphant expression. "Who do you think cleared Marcus’s background check when he joined the security detail five years ago? Bureaucrats love money just as much as mobsters, Ethan. They just wear better suits."
My fingers brushed the metal pin of the flash-bang.
"You talk too much, Beatrice," I said quietly.
May you like
"And you, my dear," she replied, her finger tightening on the trigger, "are about to become a tragic casualty of a domestic gas leak."
She pulled the trigger.
