Chapter 14 - THE LAST BETRAYAL
Dylan’s face was bruised.
Marcus dragged him toward the altar.
“You have three minutes,” Marcus called.
Claire and I entered together.
Reyes and the agents remained outside.
Marcus had rigged the doors with explosives.
One wrong move could bring down the entire entrance.
I placed both keys on the floor.
“Let him go.”
Marcus smiled.
“You always were easy to control.”
“You pretended to be my friend.”
“I was your friend.”
“Until Claire’s money became more valuable than you.”
Claire stepped forward.
“The money is not ours.”
“It belongs to the widows.”
Marcus laughed.
“Most of them are dead.”
“Then it belongs to their families.”
“No.”
“It belongs to the people smart enough to take it.”
Dylan struggled against the wire.
Marcus tightened it.
“Stop moving.”
I watched Marcus carefully.
His right hand controlled the wire.
His left hand held a trigger.
Claire noticed too.
“What do you want?”
“Ethan’s signature.”
“He will never give it.”
“He will when he watches Dylan die.”
A side door opened.
Ethan walked into the church.
My blood turned cold.
He had slipped past the agents.
“Let Dylan go,” Ethan said.
Marcus smiled.
“There is my heir.”
“You want my signature?”
“Yes.”
“Then release him.”
“Sign first.”
Ethan walked toward the altar.
I blocked him.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“Dad, trust me.”
Marcus placed a document on the altar.
Ethan picked up the pen.
Dylan shook his head desperately.
“Don’t.”
Ethan signed.
Marcus grabbed the paper.
Then his smile vanished.
The signature read:
ETHAN CLAIRE CARTER.
Not Ethan Pike.
Not Ethan Hale.
Not the legal name required by the foundation documents.
“You think this is funny?”
“No,” Ethan said.
“I think you never read Claire’s original trust.”
Claire smiled faintly.
“The account cannot be transferred by signature.”
“It requires a living widow’s authorization.”
Marcus looked toward Margaret.
She stood outside with the agents.
Ethan continued.
“And every surviving widow has already frozen the account.”
Marcus raised the trigger.
“Then no one gets anything.”
Before he could press it, Dylan dropped to his knees.
The wire slipped over his head.
Ethan had quietly cut it with the sharp edge of the silver cup’s hidden base.
Dylan tackled Marcus.
The trigger flew across the floor.
I kicked it beneath a pew.
Marcus struck Dylan and reached for his gun.
Claire moved first.
She stepped between Marcus and the boys.
A shot echoed.
Claire fell.
Agents stormed the church.
Marcus was taken down before he could fire again.
I dropped beside Claire.
Blood spread across her shoulder.
“Stay with me.”
She looked toward Ethan.
“Is he safe?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes closed.
Paramedics rushed inside.
They carried her out alive.
Amanda was also transported to the hospital under guard.
Marcus, Nolan, Raymond, Brooke, and Sheila were all arrested.
It should have felt finished.
But as officers searched the church, Detective Reyes found a hidden room beneath the altar.
Inside were photographs of the widows.
Financial records.
Passports.
And a wall covered with surveillance images of Ethan from infancy to the present day.
One photograph had been taken only hours earlier.
It showed Ethan asleep in the secure house.
Someone had written beneath it:
THE HEIR MUST NEVER REACH SEVENTEEN.
May you like
Ethan’s seventeenth birthday was tomorrow.
And Marcus had been in police custody when the photograph was taken.
