Chapter 12 - THE BILLIONAIRE'S MOST DANGEROUS GAMBLE
Linda Whitmore received the first legal notice at 9:03 a.m.
By 9:07, she had thrown her coffee mug across the office.
By 9:12, Claire was crying.
And by 9:20, Daniel Brooks was standing in Linda’s private conference room.
“You told me Ethan was harmless,” Linda snapped.
Daniel’s face was pale.
“He was supposed to be.”
“He found Richard!”
“I know.”
“And now someone has filed a claim against the company!”
Daniel scanned the documents.
His expression changed.
“Thomas Cole’s trust.”
Linda grabbed the papers.
“That’s impossible.”
Daniel looked up.
“If the trust is valid, our entire ownership structure could be challenged.”
Claire stared at them.
“What does that mean?”
Linda’s voice was barely audible.
“It means we could lose everything.”
Across Denver, Ethan and Savannah sat with an independent litigation team.
The blue ledger had been authenticated by a forensic accounting specialist.
It documented years of suspicious transactions.
But Ethan refused to rush.
They needed enough evidence to protect Margaret, Richard, and every employee harmed by Linda’s takeover.
Savannah reviewed the ledger page by page.
Then she noticed something strange.
A recurring payment appeared every month.
Thirty-eight thousand dollars.
Always routed through the same intermediary.
Always labeled Project Evergreen.
“Ethan, look at this.”
He leaned closer.
The payments began seventeen years earlier.
The same month Richard disappeared.
And they continued until Margaret’s stroke.
Savannah’s hands went cold.
“Someone was being paid to keep my father hidden.”
Ethan nodded.
“Probably.”
She scrolled further.
Then she found a new payment.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
Made seven months earlier.
To Dr. Martin Hale.
Savannah looked at Ethan.
“This is the doctor who accessed Mom’s records.”
Ethan called the litigation team.
“Preserve everything connected to Project Evergreen.”
That afternoon, a federal investigator contacted Ethan.
A whistleblower had come forward.
The whistleblower claimed to have administered an unauthorized medication to Margaret Reed shortly before her stroke.
And the person who had ordered it was willing to confess.
But there was one condition.
May you like
The witness would speak only to Savannah.
Because the witness was Claire Whitmore.
