Chapter 4 - The Attorney’s Web
By 2:00 AM, the unconscious intruder had been secured in the estate’s wine cellar with heavy zip-ties and a guard posted outside the iron door. Local police had been deliberately bypassed; Adrian knew that involving the Newport precinct would trigger a media circus that his board of directors would use to strip him of his CEO title. In Adrian’s world, corporate wars were fought in private, and betrayals were handled behind closed doors.
He sat alone in his study, a glass of neat bourbon warming in his hand, staring at the phone on his desk.
The door opened without a knock.
Miles walked in, looking disheveled, his silk tie loosened and his usually immaculate hair out of place. He looked at Adrian with a mixture of apprehension and grim exhaustion.
"You called me at two in the morning, sir," Miles said quietly. "I assume this isn't about tomorrow's zoning board meeting."
Adrian didn't look up from his glass. "Vance."
Miles blinked. "Pardon?"
"Arthur Vance," Adrian said, his voice cold as arctic ice. "My senior legal counsel. The man who has managed my personal trusts for twelve years. Explain to me why he personally arranged for Elena Rivera to be placed in my house three weeks ago."
Miles swallowed hard. He walked over to the desk, pulled out the guest chair, and sat down without being invited—a breach of protocol that told Adrian everything he needed to know before Miles even opened his mouth.
"You found out," Miles murmured.
"I found out that a woman with a dangerous past was dropped on my doorstep by my own lawyer, carrying a child who somehow knows my dead wife’s unreleased piano composition," Adrian said, standing up so fast his chair slammed backward against the wall. "Start talking, Miles, before I forget that we went to Harvard together and throw you in the cellar with Moretti."
Miles held up both hands defensively. "Adrian, calm down. It wasn't a plot against your life. At least... not in the way you think."
"Then what was it?"
"Vance didn't place Elena here by accident," Miles admitted, his voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial register. "Three months ago, Vance was approached by a third party—an anonymous investor representing a consortium trying to acquire our Providence shipping terminals. They discovered that Elena Rivera’s ex-boyfriend, Vince Moretti, had managed to secure copies of old corporate ledgers from your late wife’s personal safe."
Adrian stopped pacing. "Caroline’s safe? Caroline didn't keep corporate ledgers."
"She did," Miles said grimly. "Not Gallow-Mercer corporate ledgers. Her father’s old shipping company records—the ones from before the merger. There are documents in that safe that prove your father-in-law transferred forty percent of the Newport docks to an offshore shell company to avoid federal tax liability back in 2010. If those documents go public, the entire foundation of the Gallow-Mercer empire collapses under federal fraud charges."
Adrian stared at his assistant, the blood roaring in his ears. "Caroline’s father was an honorable man. He built those docks legally."
"He built them with federal subsidies and creative accounting," Miles corrected gently. "Vance found out that Vince Moretti had those papers, hidden in a storage locker in Providence. Moretti was planning to use them to blackmail you for fifty million dollars."
"So Vance planted Elena here to find the papers?"
"No," Miles said, shaking his head. "Vance planted Elena here because he found out Elena was the one who hid the original key to Caroline’s safe before Moretti could steal it from her apartment. Moretti was hunting her to get the key. Vance intercepted her first, brought her to Windmere House, and figured that if she was inside your estate, Moretti would eventually try to break in—allowing Vance to eliminate the blackmail threat permanently while making it look like a botched burglary."
The room seemed to shrink around Adrian.
Every piece of the puzzle clicked into a terrifying, mechanical alignment. He hadn't just hired a maid; he had been maneuvered into housing a pawn in a high-stakes corporate chess match orchestrated by his own lawyer.
And little Maisie? She was just collateral damage in a war over millions of dollars.
"Where is Vance now?" Adrian asked, his voice shaking with a fury so cold it burned.
"He’s flying back from London tonight," Miles said, glancing at his watch. "His private jet lands at TF Green Airport in Providence at 6:00 AM."
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Adrian reached down, picked up his leather coat from the back of the sofa, and pulled it over his broad shoulders. He reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a heavy .45 caliber Sig Sauer pistol, and checked the load with a sharp, metallic click.
"Get your car, Miles," Adrian said, walking toward the door. "We’re going to welcome our lawyer back to Rhode Island."
