Chapter 2 - The Ghost Protocol
We didn't go to the police. Tobias knew better. Garrett’s family had half the local precinct on their payroll, which was exactly how my parents' murder had been swept under the rug as a "tragic vehicular malfunction" fifteen years ago. If we walked into a police station, we would be dead before the paperwork was filed.
Instead, Tobias led us through the storm drains to a secluded safe house he had purchased years ago under a dummy corporation.
For three agonizing weeks, the world believed Rosalind and Tobias Vance were dead.
Sitting in the safe house, I watched my own funeral on the local news. I watched Garrett standing by the closed, empty caskets, weeping flawlessly for the cameras. I watched Penelope, dressed in mourning black that hugged her pregnant belly, leaning against him for "support." The press hailed Garrett as a tragic hero who had valiantly tried to save his wife and disabled brother but was beaten by the brutal river current.
While they celebrated their victory, I underwent an aggressive detoxification protocol Tobias had arranged with an underground physician. As the poison finally left my system, the mental fog I hadn't even realized I was living in completely lifted. My mind sharpened into a lethal, focused blade.
"They called an emergency board meeting for tomorrow morning," Tobias announced, walking into the kitchen with a stack of files. "Garrett is officially petitioning the board to execute the succession clause. He’s transferring your fifty-one percent of the shares into a new trust controlled by him and Penelope."
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I looked at the meticulously gathered evidence spread across the table. Tobias had spent a decade and a half hacking their offshore accounts, documenting the wire transfers from Garrett's father to the mechanic who cut my parents' brakes, and securing the lab results from the poisoned milk.
"He thinks he’s a king," I said, a cold, ruthless smile finally touching my lips. "It’s time to show him what happens when you try to drown a woman who builds ships for a living."
