Chapter 8 - The Trap Reverses
“You really think you’re the only Holloway who knows how to plan five moves ahead, Grant?” Noah asked, turning around slowly.
Grant’s eyes narrowed, the silver head of his cane gripped tight in his fist. “Don't play the strategist with me, boy. I built the empire you ran away from.”
“And you taught me every dirty trick in the book before I left,” Noah replied calmly.
He reached inside his tuxedo jacket and pulled out his personal smartphone. He tapped the screen three times and held it up.
“Three days ago, Rachel didn't just see you at the St. Regis,” Noah said, nodding toward his sister. “She called me the second you walked into that private lounge. We knew about your little rendezvous before Allison even ordered her first drink.”
Allison looked up from the floor, her eyes wide with shock. “What?”
“Did you really think Rachel would keep a secret like that from me?” Noah looked down at Allison with a mixture of pity and contempt. “Rachel is my sister. We survived our mother’s death together. We survived Grant together. You thought you could divide us with a locked door and a stolen phone?”
Rachel stepped forward, holding up a small, sleek flash drive that she had concealed inside Lily’s stuffed bear all morning.
“I let you push me into that closet, Allison,” Rachel said, a fierce, triumphant glint in her eyes. “I wanted to see just how far you were willing to go. I wanted you to commit corporate fraud, false imprisonment, and assault on federal record.”
Grant’s lawyers immediately stepped forward, murmuring frantically into their client’s ear. Grant waved them off, but the tight, defensive clench of his jaw betrayed his sudden panic.
May you like
“What are you talking about?” Grant hissed.
“The patents,” Noah explained calmly. “The software architecture you thought you bought through Allison’s dummy corporation? That was a shell framework. The real core intellectual property was transferred to an independent trust registered under Rachel’s name forty-eight hours ago.”
