Chapter 13 - Secrets in the Foundation
Drowning in the corporate onslaught, James remembered Eleanor's journal. That evening, instead of retreating, he drove out to the old Ashby estate—the crumbling Victorian mansion where he and Eleanor had spent their early marriage before the wealth turned him cold. The house had been locked up for years.
Dust motes danced in the beam of his flashlight as he walked into the grand parlor. He approached the massive stone fireplace—the hearth.
Using a crowbar from his trunk, James began to pry at the loosened mortar near the base of the chimney. After an hour of grueling physical labor, his hands bleeding, a hollow sound echoed. He pulled away a false brick, revealing a rusted metal lockbox.
Inside were not bearer bonds or gold, but documents. Deeds. Eleanor had quietly bought the land rights underneath Kellerman Square using her own family inheritance decades ago. She had willed the land not to the Ashby Corporation, but to a private trust named The Resilient Sponge—a name she had joked about with James long ago, referencing how people must absorb pain and bounce back.
More importantly, the box contained a ledger detailing Marcus's illegal offshore accounts. Marcus hadn't just been angry about the charity; he had been using the Ashby Corporation to launder money for a notorious European syndicate, and James’s new transparency policies were about to expose him.
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Suddenly, the floorboards creaked behind him. James turned around. Three men stood in the doorway, their faces obscured by shadows. One of them held a heavy iron pipe.
"Marcus said you'd come here," the leader said. "Hand over the box, Mr. Ashby."
