Chapter 3 - The Bloodline TrapBy Wednesday morning, the story of the incident at the Whitmore estate had begun to leak into the local press, though the family’s legal team worked furiously to contain it. Headlines in the local business journals cited "internal family disagreements" and "minor domestic disputes," but the high-society circles were already buzzing with rumors.
Lucas sat in the high-ceilinged study of the Whitmore estate, nursing a glass of scotch. Across from him, Margaret was pacing back and forth, her diamond rings clicking rhythmically against her fingernails.
"She has the server back-ups, Lucas!" Margaret snapped, stopping in front of his desk. "Your brother is facing a misdemeanor assault charge, and I have a court date next month! Do you have any idea what this does to the board meeting next Friday?"
"Sit down, Mother," Lucas said, his voice quiet, exhausted.
"Don't tell me to sit down!" she yelled. "You guaranteed me she was manageable. You said a girl from her background would be grateful for the name, the clothes, the life! Now she’s sitting in a lawyer's office in Boston holding our entire digital network hostage!"
Chase entered the room, his jaw bruised where he had tripped over the coffee table during the chaos two days prior. "We can buy her off. Everyone has a number. Give her five million, a house in Florida, and a non-disclosure agreement."
"She doesn't want money, Chase," Lucas said, looking down at his desk. "She never cared about the money. That was our mistake. We thought she was like us."
"Then what does she want?" Chase demanded.
"She wants to know what happened to Arthur," a voice said from the doorway.
Both Margaret and Chase spun around.
Standing at the entrance of the study was Richard Whitmore, Arthur’s younger brother and the black sheep of the family. He had been exiled to the European division of the company ten years ago after a bitter dispute over the family's medical development wing. He held a leather folder under his arm, his dark eyes sharp behind gold-rimmed glasses.
"Richard," Margaret said, her voice dropping an octave. "What are you doing here? You weren't invited until the board meeting next week."
"I took an earlier flight from Zurich," Richard said, walking into the room and placing the folder on Lucas's desk. "Because my contacts in the city informed me that a young woman named Sophia was currently attempting to access the historical archives of the Whitmore Medical Trust."
Lucas looked up, his expression hardening. "She doesn't have the decryption key for the deep archives."
"She doesn't need it," Richard said with a cold laugh. "She built the secondary encryption protocols herself when you hired her to secure the network three years ago. You gave the keys to the kingdom to a woman you thought was just a pretty trophy, Lucas. She knows about the clinical trials."
Margaret stepped between Richard and the desk. "The clinical trials were legal! They were approved by the board!"
"The early trials were legal," Richard corrected her. "The secondary phase—the phase conducted on patients who had signed broad medical waivers—was not. And if Sophia presents those logs to the state prosecutor, it won't just be Chase going to jail for a minor assault. It will be all three of you going to federal prison for corporate manslaughter."
Chase’s face lost all its color. "Manslaughter? What are you talking about? Dad died of a stroke!"
"Your father died because he tried to stop the launch of the new pharmaceutical wing," Richard said, looking directly at Margaret. "And when he refused to sign the approval documents, someone put him in a quiet room at the facility and let his health decline until he wasn't able to object anymore."
Margaret’s hand flew to her collarbone. "That is a lie! Arthur was sick!"
"He was sick because you made him sick," Richard said softly. Then he turned to Lucas. "And now you tried to do the exact same thing to your wife. You tried to force her onto a medical waiver so she couldn't tell the world that Aegis Shoreline was created to hide the money you stole from your father's estate."
Lucas didn't defend himself. He simply took a long sip of his drink and looked out the window toward the courtyard.
"She won't go to the prosecutor yet," Lucas said softly.
"Why not?" Richard asked.
"Because she knows there’s one document still missing," Lucas replied, his voice flat. "The original paper copy of Arthur's will. The one that wasn't digitized. The one that leaves fifty-one percent of the voting shares not to me, not to Chase, and not to Mother..."
Lucas looked at Richard, then at Margaret.
"...but to the first grandchild of the Whitmore bloodline."
May you like
Margaret gasped. "She... she isn't..."
"No," Lucas said, his eyes empty. "She isn't pregnant. But she knows that as long as that paper will exists, our control of the company is entirely illegitimate."
