Chapter 9 - THE SON SHE CHOSE
Dana’s bullet struck Mercer in the shoulder.
Officers pulled Miles to safety and searched the plant, but Carter escaped through a drainage tunnel.
Miles survived with a broken wrist and two cracked ribs.
At the hospital, he confessed everything.
Carter had stolen my access card during a company party. Miles created false logs and moved the money. Reagan paid him $200,000 and threatened his daughter when he tried to back out.
“Why didn’t you tell the truth after I was convicted?” I asked.
He stared at the floor.
“Because you went to prison, and I went home. Cowards get used to choosing themselves.”
I understood his shame better than I wanted to.
My father had done the same thing.
Miles signed a sworn confession. The district attorney filed a motion to vacate my conviction.
For the first time in three years, freedom felt real.
Then Reagan requested to speak with me.
I met her in an interview room separated by thick glass.
She looked older without the pearls, makeup and expensive clothes.
“Carter will come for Camden,” she said.
“You sound worried.”
“You don’t know my son.”
“I know exactly what he is.”
“No. You know what I made him.”
She told me Carter had grown up believing Camden owed him everything. Reagan fed that belief because she wanted Carter to inherit the company.
“He learned that love is ownership,” she said. “If he can’t own the company, he’ll destroy it.”
“Where will he go?”
“To the place where he thinks Camden hid the offshore account.”
“There is no offshore account. Dad made it up.”
Reagan smiled faintly.
“Camden lied. There is an account.”
The money was hidden behind a numbered trust created by my mother. It wasn’t stolen money. It was Amelia’s emergency fund, worth almost eight million dollars.
Only my father knew the final access code.
Reagan leaned closer to the glass.
“Carter will torture him for it.”
My phone rang.
The rehabilitation center’s night nurse was crying.
Two guards had been found unconscious.
My father was missing.
A message arrived from Carter.
It showed Camden tied to a chair in our old warehouse.
COME ALONE, BROTHER.
Reagan watched my face.
“He never called you his brother before, did he?”
“No.”
“That means he plans to kill you.”
I stood.
Reagan pressed her hand against the glass.
“Finnley, wait.”
I looked back.
For the first time, her voice sounded human.
“Please bring my son back alive.”
I thought of my mother’s car at the bottom of a ravine. I thought of the warehouse fire, Elena’s scars and three years behind bars.
May you like
“You didn’t leave anyone else’s child alive,” I said.
Then I walked out.
