Chapter 11 - MY MOTHER'S LAST CONTRACT
The second agreement changed the story again.
Mom had signed it eleven days before she died.
I sat in Sterling House's closed dining room while Daniel locked the front doors.
The same chandelier glowed above table nine.
Twenty-four hours ago, I had been worrying about tips.
Now a billionaire, a mafia boss, three attorneys, and two security teams were waiting while I translated my dead mother's signature.
Pierce looked exhausted.
“Tomas told me the custodian line had legally expired.”
“So you tried to take Viktor's companies.”
“I tried to acquire voting control.”
“That sounds prettier.”
Viktor glanced at me.
Definitely another almost-smile.
Pierce admitted Tomas had approached him a year earlier claiming the Kovacs organization was unstable.
He provided documents, projections, internal emails, and private financial data.
Pierce believed he was exploiting a corporate succession dispute.
He claimed he never knew Tomas was threatening anyone.
Viktor clearly didn't trust him.
Neither did I.
Then I opened Mom's agreement.
It wasn't a transfer.
It was a declaration.
Evelyn Bennett confirmed that Ilona had preserved evidence of fraudulent asset transfers dating back decades.
She agreed to release it only if someone attempted to seize control using a falsified version of the original Hungarian charter.
That had now happened.
At the bottom, Mom had written:
Mara does not know any of this.
Keep her that way unless the seal is used.
My eyes blurred.
Even dying, Mom had been trying to keep me outside the story.
Then I reached the final paragraph.
It identified the location of the evidence.
Sterling House.
I slowly looked around.
Daniel's face went blank.
“What?”
My mother had written the exact location.
Behind the original 1932 wine cellar wall, beneath the carved letter S.
Daniel stared at me.
“That wall was opened during renovations six months ago.”
My heart dropped.
“Who supervised the renovation?”
Daniel swallowed.
May you like
Then he looked toward Viktor.
“Tomas Varga.”
