Chapter 6
Grace was already running before the recording ended.
I caught her near the warehouse door.
“Wait for the agents.”
“My daughter is on a roof.”
“Our daughter.”
She looked at me, breathing hard.
Then she nodded.
“Our daughter.”
Dana ordered Boston police to block the streets around Bennett Tower, but she did not trust them with the rescue. Mercer’s name appeared beside too many officers in the ledger.
A federal tactical unit met us three blocks away.
The helicopter on the roof had not taken off.
High winds had delayed the pilot.
Conrad was trapped above the city with Lily.
Grace pulled up the building plans on a tablet.
She had cleaned Victoria’s office many times and knew the executive elevator required a fingerprint after hours.
“I can get us to the forty-eighth floor,” she said. “The final two floors must be reached through the emergency stairs.”
“You’re not going inside,” Dana replied.
“Lily will respond to my voice.”
“She may also see you threatened.”
Grace did not back down.
I understood why my father and Conrad had feared her.
They had mistaken limited power for weakness.
Dana finally agreed to let Grace and me follow behind the tactical team.
Marcus was taken to surgery.
My mother went with him under guard.
Victoria, Mercer, and Owen were transported separately to federal holding.
At Bennett Tower, employees were still working overnight to prepare the company’s announcement of my removal.
When I entered the lobby, hundreds of faces turned toward me.
A security guard blocked the elevator.
“Ms. Bennett ordered us not to admit you.”
Dana displayed her badge.
“Ms. Bennett is under arrest.”
Whispers spread through the lobby.
The guard stepped aside.
The elevator stopped at the forty-eighth floor.
Smoke poured from the corridor.
Conrad had triggered the fire system, disabling elevators and creating panic below.
We climbed the emergency stairs.
Grace struggled to breathe because of her injured shoulder, but she refused to stop.
Near the roof door, we heard Lily scream.
“Mommy!”
Grace rushed forward.
An agent caught her before she exposed herself.
Through the door’s narrow window, I saw Conrad beside the helipad.
He held Lily against his chest with one arm and a gun with the other.
The pilot lay motionless near the helicopter.
A Bennett security officer stood at the roof’s edge.
Conrad had ordered him to throw my daughter if I appeared.
Wind whipped Lily’s hair across her face.
She clutched Captain against her heart.
Dana spoke through the intercom.
“Conrad Bennett, the building is surrounded.”
He fired into the roof door.
Glass shattered.
“Send Nathan out!”
I took an earpiece from the tactical commander.
“If I can keep him looking at me, can your team reach Lily?”
“Not safely. The armed guard is too close.”
Grace touched my arm.
“Lily knows a game.”
She explained that when Lily became frightened in crowded places, Grace would say, “Find the yellow door.”
It meant drop to the ground, cover her head, and wait.
“If I can say those words, she’ll move away from him.”
Conrad demanded me again.
I stepped onto the roof with my hands raised.
Grace remained hidden behind the door.
Conrad dragged Lily closer to the edge.
“You destroyed two families for a maid.”
“No. You destroyed them because you feared the truth.”
“I built everything you inherited.”
“You built it with bribes and bodies.”
His face twisted.
“Bring me the ledger.”
“It’s with federal prosecutors.”
“Then you’re useless.”
He aimed at me.
Grace shouted through the broken window.
“Lily, find the yellow door!”
Lily immediately dropped.
Conrad grabbed for her, but she rolled beneath the helicopter’s landing rail.
The tactical team fired at the armed guard’s weapon.
It flew from his hand.
I ran toward Lily.
Conrad shot once.
Pain burned across my side, but I kept moving.
Grace reached Lily from the other direction and covered her.
Conrad tried to climb into the helicopter.
The pilot suddenly rolled over and pulled the emergency fuel lever.
The engine died.
Conrad struck him with the gun.
I grabbed Conrad’s ankle and dragged him backward.
He kicked my wound.
I held on.
“You took my mother.”
Another kick.
“You took Grace.”
He raised the gun.
“You do not take my daughter.”
I pulled him from the helicopter.
The gun slid across the roof.
Conrad crawled toward it, but Grace reached it first.
She aimed with both hands despite the pain in her shoulder.
“Move away from my child.”
Conrad laughed.
“You won’t shoot.”
“No,” Grace said. “But they will.”
Red targeting lights covered his chest.
Federal agents surrounded him.
He finally raised his hands.
Lily ran into my arms.
Blood soaked the side of my shirt.
She saw it and began crying.
“Daddy’s hurt.”
“I’m still here.”
Grace pressed her hand against the wound.
“You promised you’d come back.”
“I promised I would never leave because I wanted to.”
Paramedics carried me from the roof.
The bullet had passed through muscle without striking an organ.
At the hospital, Lily sat beside me while doctors closed the wound.
Grace stayed on my other side.
Neither released my hands.
Dana arrived before dawn.
Conrad had been charged with kidnapping, attempted murder, conspiracy, bribery, and obstruction.
Victoria’s recorded confession connected her to the attack on Grace and the plan to kill me.
Mercer had offered cooperation.
“Is it over?” Grace asked.
Dana’s hesitation answered before she spoke.
“Not yet.”
Conrad’s attorneys had produced a document signed by my father.
It transferred controlling ownership of Cole Industries to a trust if any Cole heir exposed company records to law enforcement.
The trust’s beneficiary was Victoria.
“She may lose her freedom,” Dana said, “but she could still own everything.”
I looked at Lily asleep against my arm.
“Let her have it.”
Grace frowned.
“Nathan, that company is your life.”
“No. I thought it was.”
My mother entered in a wheelchair, pale but smiling.
Marcus walked beside her with his arm bandaged.
She placed another file on my bed.
“Your father prepared for that clause,” she said.
Inside was a later will naming his lawful descendants as equal beneficiaries.
Lily’s name had not been written because he never knew it.
Instead, he had used two words.
Future grandchildren.
Marcus smiled.
“Victoria can claim the company only if she proves she is Richard’s daughter.”
My relief faded as I understood.
“She is.”
My mother shook her head.
“No, Nathan. Richard lied on that recording.”
She opened a DNA report dated thirty years earlier.
“Victoria isn’t his daughter.”
Grace stared at her.
“Then whose daughter is she?”
My mother looked toward the hospital door.
A federal agent had brought Victoria into the corridor for treatment.
Behind her walked Detective Mercer.
May you like
My mother pointed at him.
“His.”
