Chapter 13 - THE MAN WHO CAME FOR CHRISTMAS
Adrian Vale looked disappointingly ordinary.
No scar.
No dramatic black suit.
Just an expensive winter coat and the smile of a man who had spent his life believing fear made him powerful.
“Give me the documents, Maggie.”
“They’re not here.”
His smile vanished.
“I know Eleanor’s daughter isn’t stupid.”
“Nice of you.”
“You’re very much like her.”
“You knew my mother?”
“My father hated her.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
Good.
Angry men talk too much.
Behind him, Marcus shifted toward the door.
Adrian noticed.
“Don’t.”
Marcus froze.
Then someone knocked from the other side.
Three polite taps.
Benny’s voice followed.
“Maggie?”
“Yes?”
“You okay?”
Adrian reached inside his coat.
I raised my voice.
“I burned the biscuits.”
Silence.
Then Benny said:
“You never burn biscuits.”
The door exploded inward.
Not literally.
Benny simply hit it hard enough that the old lock gave way.
Roman, Vincent, Valentina, and half the household were behind him.
Adrian backed away.
There was nowhere to go.
He had expected frightened criminals.
Instead, he found thirty furious men defending their cook.
What followed lasted less than a minute.
No heroic shootout.
No bloodbath.
Just overwhelming numbers and Adrian realizing he had lost.
When authorities arrived, Roman handed over my mother’s evidence.
Marcus surrendered too.
He admitted everything he had done for Adrian and agreed to cooperate.
Walter appeared twenty minutes later carrying my apple pie.
“Figured everyone might be hungry.”
I stared at him.
“Were you hiding during all this?”
“No. Benny locked me in the library.”
“Smart man.”
Benny looked proud.
Christmas morning arrived quietly.
Adrian was gone.
The evidence was safe.
Roman’s sister was home.
And for the first time since my mother died, I felt like maybe the world had stopped taking things away from me.
Then Roman asked me to meet him in his office.
A contract sat on his desk.
I read the first page.
Then the second.
My hands began trembling.
“This isn’t an employment contract.”
“No.”
It was an ownership agreement.
My mother had never merely worked at Ravenwood.
According to documents Roman’s mother had signed decades earlier, Eleanor Sullivan owned part of Duca Heritage Restoration.
May you like
And now…
So did I.
