Chapter 18 - The Masquerade Falls
My stomach clenched into a hard knot. How had she found us? The SIM card had been destroyed. The Land Rover had no modern GPS tracker.
Then my eyes landed on Maisie’s winter parka, folded neatly beside the couch. Sewn into the collar was the small, silver designer tag that Rebecca had gifted her for her eighth birthday—a "smart tracker" disguised as high-end brand jewelry, which Rebecca had claimed would keep Maisie safe from kidnappers.
She hadn't tracked me. She had tracked Maisie.
"I know you're in there, Leah," Rebecca’s voice drifted through the door again, perfectly modulated, completely devoid of the panic she had feigned at the manor. "And I know you have the black ledger. You really should have stayed at the estate. The state troopers were under strict instructions to handle you gently."
I remained utterly motionless behind the hearth, the cold steel of the shotgun pressed against my cheek, my finger resting on the trigger guard.
"Arthur was an idiot," Rebecca continued, her voice drawing closer as she stepped across the creaking porch boards. "He thought he could alter the balance sheets without my father noticing. He actually believed he was the architect of his own empire. But you, Leah... you were always smarter than him. That’s why you’re dangerous."
A heavy thud shook the door. Someone was testing the frame with an iron pry bar.
"Mommy?" Maisie’s voice was a tiny, frightened whimper in the dark.
"Stay down, Maisie," I whispered, not taking my eyes off the door. "Cover your ears."
"Julian is already in Boston, Leah," Rebecca called out, the friendly veneer completely stripped away, replaced by the razor-sharp coldness of a corporate predator. "He’s closing Box 108 as we speak under an emergency estate injunction. Even if you walk out of here alive, you have nowhere to go. Give me the girl. My father only needs her signature on the trust assignment. We will set you up with five million dollars in an offshore account. You can leave the country. You can have a life."
"She’s nine years old!" I shouted back, the fury erupting from my throat like fire. "She is a child!"
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"She is an asset worth two hundred million dollars," Rebecca replied smoothly. "And you are standing in the way of a liquidation sixty years in the making. Break it down."
The heavy wood of the cabin door splintered inward with a violent crash.
