Chapter 10 - THE NIGHT THE ESTATE WENT DARK
Backup lights activated three seconds later.
Three seconds was enough.
Lawson heard Blythe scream.
He ran.
The medical wing doors were open.
A nurse was unconscious on the floor.
Jonah remained in bed.
Blythe’s bed was empty.
Lawson stopped breathing.
“No.”
Prescott began shouting orders.
Elena grabbed Jonah’s hand.
Amelia checked the nurse.
Lawson stared at the empty bed.
Then a voice came through the intercom.
Victor.
“Still building walls, little brother?”
Lawson looked toward the ceiling speaker.
“Where is she?”
“Safe.”
“If you hurt her—”
“You’ll do what? Spend money at me?”
Victor laughed.
“You finally found something money can’t solve.”
Lawson’s rage became strangely quiet.
“What do you want?”
“The Mercer voting trust.”
Of course.
Victor wanted control.
“Transfer your shares and the children’s future interest to me.”
“You know I can’t transfer their trust without court approval.”
“You can sign an emergency proxy.”
Prescott whispered that security was tracing the intercom signal.
Victor continued.
“You have four minutes.”
Then Blythe’s voice came through.
“Daddy?”
Lawson’s heart broke.
“I’m here, sweetheart.”
“I don’t like Uncle Victor.”
Victor laughed.
Blythe whispered:
“He smells weird.”
Even terrified, she was still Blythe.
Lawson nearly smiled.
“Listen to me. You’re coming back.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
He never promised what he could not deliver.
Tonight he did.
Prescott pointed toward the underground service corridor.
Signal source.
Inside the estate.
Victor had never taken Blythe outside.
Lawson signed nothing.
He went below with Prescott and two security officers.
No guns raised near Blythe.
No reckless entry.
Lawson hated every second of restraint.
They found Yates first.
Locked inside a storage room.
Bleeding from the forehead.
“He turned on me,” Yates gasped.
“Victor?”
“He was never going to pay.”
“Where’s Blythe?”
“Old armory tunnel.”
Lawson ran.
Conrad had built emergency escape tunnels decades earlier.
Victor knew them too.
They found Blythe sitting on the floor near an exit hatch.
Alone.
Crying.
Lawson dropped beside her.
She threw herself into his arms.
“Daddy!”
He held her so tightly she complained.
“You’re squishing me.”
“Good.”
“Where’s Uncle Victor?”
Lawson looked at the open hatch.
Gone.
Then Blythe pulled something from her pajama pocket.
A phone.
“Uncle Victor dropped it.”
Prescott took it carefully.
The screen displayed an open message thread.
Victor had been texting someone.
Not Yates.
Someone labeled C.M.
The latest message read:
IF THE GIRL ISN’T ENOUGH, USE THE BOY. LAWSON WILL SIGN EVENTUALLY.
Lawson stared at the initials.
C.M.
Conrad Mercer had been dead for five years.
May you like
Unless someone had been using his identity.
Or Conrad was not the Mercer they meant.
