Chương 10
Flynn turned away from the door.
“I said shut up.”
“You’re losing control.”
“You lied to me.”
The corridor beyond the bathroom went silent.
My heartbeat slowed in a strange way.
Not calm.
Attention.
Aidan said, “About what?”
“The trust.”
There was a pause.
Then Aidan laughed.
“You’re doing this now?”
“Kara messaged me.”
My grip tightened on the tablet.
He thought he had received the message.
He had not yet noticed the device was missing.
“Flynn,” Aidan said, “give me your phone.”
“No.”
“You’re upset.”
“No.”
“Your judgment is compromised.”
Flynn laughed once.
It was a terrible sound.
“You drugged my wife, planned to kill her parents, and now you’re worried about my judgment?”
I stopped breathing.
Aidan answered quietly.
“You drugged your wife.”
The correction landed like a knife.
Flynn said nothing.
Aidan continued.
“You arranged the medication.”
“I did what you told me to do.”
“You signed the staffing request.”
“You told me the crew changes were necessary.”
“You altered her schedule.”
“You gave her the pills.”
“With Fiona.”
“Your mother handed you medication.”
Aidan’s tone remained almost conversational.
“You chose to use it.”
I leaned closer to the door.
The hierarchy between them was breaking apart in real time.
Flynn had believed himself to be the architect.
Aidan was reminding him that he was also the evidence.
“What did you tell me about the trust?” Flynn asked.
“The truth.”
“Kara says Fiona changed it.”
“Kara is a secretary.”
“She’s my assistant.”
“She books your restaurants.”
“She has a law degree.”
Aidan went quiet.
That detail surprised me too.
Kara had never mentioned it.
Then Aidan said, “She never practiced.”
“She worked for Sterling Legal before she worked for me.”
I knew that part.
Barely.
Kara had been transferred into Flynn’s office two years earlier after helping coordinate a merger closing.
I had assumed she was an executive assistant who had started somewhere else in the company.
Flynn continued.
“She saw the amendment.”
“You’re letting a woman who resents your mother destroy your head at exactly the wrong moment.”
“She sent me a copy.”
The bathroom seemed to contract around me.
A copy.
If Flynn’s phone contained it, there was evidence beyond messages.
Aidan lowered his voice.
“You need to think carefully before you accuse your mother.”
“I’m accusing you.”
“No, you’re panicking.”
“I’m asking what happens if Evelyn dies.”
Aidan did not answer immediately.
Flynn’s voice sharpened.
“You told me her personal holdings transfer through the marital trust.”
“They do.”
“Kara says they don’t.”
“She’s wrong.”
“She says the amendment excludes spousal control in the event of suspicious or unresolved death.”
Silence.
I had never heard of such an amendment.
My father would have known.
Or maybe he would not.
The Sterling estate structure was layered through trusts, holding companies, charitable vehicles, and legal arrangements that made my eyes glaze over whenever someone tried to explain them.
I had spent years resenting that architecture.
Now it might be the only reason I was still alive.
Aidan said, “Your mother would never agree to language like that.”
Flynn answered, “Apparently she did.”
The word apparently carried something colder than fear.
Betrayal.
Aidan tried another angle.
“Kara could have fabricated it.”
“She sent a scanned execution page.”
“Documents can be altered.”
“It has Fiona’s signature.”
“You think you know your mother’s signature?”
“Yes.”
“From Christmas cards?”
“From thirty years of checks, contracts, and foundation filings.”
Aidan’s voice hardened.
“You’re being stupid.”
There it was.
The wrong word.
Even through the door, I could feel Flynn change.
His father had spent years insulting him carefully.
Too impulsive.
Too emotional.
Too ambitious.
Never stupid.
Flynn said, very softly, “Get out.”
Aidan laughed.
“Excuse me?”
“Get out of this room.”
“We are standing in the middle of a compromised operation because your wife woke up, and you want to have a family argument?”
“I want you out.”
“You don’t give orders here.”
Flynn’s response came instantly.
“It’s my operation.”
“No.”
The single word cut through everything.
I pressed my ear against the door.
Aidan continued.
“It was never your operation.”
Flynn did not speak.
Neither did I.
Aidan sighed.
“You were useful because she trusted you.”
The bathroom disappeared around me.
A man I had called Dad at Christmas had reduced my marriage to an access credential.
Flynn said, “What did you just say?”
“You heard me.”
“You told me this was mine.”
“I told you what you needed to hear.”
A chair scraped in the bedroom.
Aidan sounded closer now.
“Did you actually think three hundred million dollars was going to land in your checking account because a woman fell off a boat?”
Flynn’s breathing changed.
Aidan kept going.
“The assets have structures, trustees, oversight, reporting.”
“I know that.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You said the power of attorney—”
“Would give us temporary control while the estate was unresolved.”
“Us?”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
Aidan did not answer.
Flynn said, “What does us mean?”
Another voice entered from the bedroom.
Fiona.
“It means stop shouting.”
I stepped back from the bathroom door.
I had not heard her enter.
Fiona sounded irritated rather than frightened.
That was somehow worse.
Flynn said, “Did you change the trust?”
A long pause followed.
Then Fiona said, “Where did you hear that?”
“Kara.”
“That girl.”
“She sent me documents.”
Fiona exhaled.
“What exactly did she send?”
“So it’s true.”
“No.”
“Then why do you care what she sent?”
“Because she had no right to access private legal files.”
“Did you change it?”
Fiona did not answer.
Flynn repeated the question.
This time his voice cracked.
Just slightly.
“Mom.”
The word made me close my eyes.
For all the horror of what he had done, he was still someone’s son.
He still wanted his mother to tell him he had not been used.
Fiona said, “It was a precaution.”
Flynn laughed once.
“No.”
“Lower your voice.”
“No.”
“Flynn.”
“You knew.”
“Of course I knew.”
“You knew I wouldn’t get control.”
May you like
“You would have gotten enough.”
“Enough?”
