Chapter 6 - The Ghost of Whitmore House
The attorney's name was Richard Vale.
Officially, he had died fifteen years earlier.
Adrian remembered the funeral.
He had been twenty-four.
Richard had been his father's closest adviser.
He had handled the Whitmore family trusts.
The company inheritance.
The private accounts.
And the documents that transferred control of Whitmore Global to Adrian.
Or so Adrian had believed.
The photograph proved Richard was alive.
Adrian ordered a complete investigation.
They discovered Richard had been living under another name in Massachusetts.
But he wasn't hiding alone.
Eleanor had been visiting him.
Nathan had been visiting him.
And most disturbing of all, Adrian's mother had been sending him money.
Adrian confronted her.
She sat in the mansion's library.
“You knew.”
She looked exhausted.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your father made a deal with him.”
“What deal?”
“To protect the company.”
Adrian stared at her.
She explained.
Twenty years earlier, Whitmore Global had nearly collapsed.
Richard had saved it.
But in exchange, he had secretly acquired a percentage of the family holdings.
Adrian's father later regretted the agreement.
He tried to remove Richard.
Richard threatened to expose illegal transactions.
The family panicked.
They staged his death.
But Richard survived.
And spent fifteen years building leverage.
Adrian's mother had been paying him to remain silent.
“What did he want?”
“Control.”
“Of the company?”
She shook her head.
“Of you.”
Adrian went still.
Richard believed Adrian was too independent.
Too powerful.
He wanted to control the company through Adrian's family.
Nathan had been his pawn.
Eleanor had been his pawn.
Victor had been his pawn.
The thefts were only the beginning.
Richard planned to force Adrian into a legal battle, remove him as CEO, and seize control.
Then Grace entered the library.
She held a folder.
“I found something.”
Adrian turned.
“What?”
She opened it.
Inside were invoices.
Richard's hidden payments.
But there was something else.
A handwritten note.
Grace recognized the handwriting.
“That's Victor's.”
Adrian read it.
It said:
The maid knows too much.
Grace went pale.
Adrian looked at her.
“When did you find this?”
“This morning.”
Adrian took her hand.
“We're going to keep you safe.”
She looked at him.
“You don't have to.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
Adrian hesitated.
Because somewhere between the gate and the warehouse, he had stopped seeing Grace as an employee.
He had started seeing her as someone whose safety mattered to him.
“Because I want to.”
Grace smiled faintly.
Then the mansion's fire alarm suddenly screamed.
Smoke filled the hallway.
Adrian pulled Grace toward the exit.
Employees rushed downstairs.
The library doors burst open.
Fire spread through the east wing.
Someone had started it deliberately.
Adrian looked back.
Richard's files were burning.
Someone wanted the evidence destroyed.
But Grace grabbed one folder from the floor.
“Come on!”
They escaped through the side entrance.
Outside, Adrian looked at the burning mansion.
For the first time in his life, he realized something.
His greatest enemy wasn't trying to take his money.
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He was trying to erase the truth.
And Grace had just saved the one piece of evidence that could bring him down.
