Chapter 7 - The Cell Block Confession
The federal holding facility in downtown Chicago smelled of bleach, cold steel, and institutional despair.
Marcus Reed sat across the metal interrogation table in a bright orange jumpsuit, his hands cuffed to a bolted loop in the center of the table. The man who had once stood beside me through every crisis, wearing a tailored tuxedo and projecting absolute confidence, now looked hollowed out, his hair unbrushed, his eyes bloodshot.
The heavy steel door clicked shut behind me as I stepped into the room.
Marcus looked up. When he saw my face, a bitter, broken smile touched the corner of his mouth.
“Well,” Marcus rasped, leaning back against the bolted chair. “If it isn't the king of the Midwest. Come to gloat, Ethan?”
I didn't answer right away. I pulled out the manila folder I had taken from Victoria’s desk, opened it, and slid a single sheet of paper across the table.
It was the wire transfer receipt from eight months ago, bearing my mother’s signature and Marcus’s offshore routing number.
Marcus’s smile vanished. He stared down at the paper as if it were a ghost.
“Where did you find that?” he whispered.
“In my mother’s private lockbox,” I said, my voice cold and flat. “Along with the prenatal clinic records of Evelyn Hart. Now, let’s skip the games, Marcus. You and I have known each other for fifteen years. You want to tell me why my mother paid you fifty thousand dollars on the exact day Evelyn’s convoy was ambushed?”
Marcus swallowed hard, his eyes darting toward the security camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling.
“Victoria didn’t want Evelyn to have that child,” Marcus said, his voice dropping to a rough murmur. “She knew that once an heir with your bloodline and Evelyn’s moral compass took control of the trust, her entire empire would be dismantled from the inside. She ordered the hit.”
“And you carried it out,” I said, stepping closer to the table. “You routed the convoy through that ravine. You set up the ambush.”
“I set up the diversion,” Marcus corrected defensively, shaking his head. “I told the team to disable the vehicle, not to detonate it! The explosion... that wasn't supposed to happen. That was Thomas Kane going rogue. Thomas tried to save Evelyn and the baby.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“Thomas Kane?” I demanded. “Thomas survived? Where is he?”
Marcus closed his eyes, shaking his head slowly. “He didn't survive long. He smuggled the baby away that afternoon, gave her to someone he trusted—a housekeeper named Grace Miller—and then Thomas died in hiding two weeks later from his injuries.”
The words hit me like a physical blow.
May you like
Grace Miller.
The housekeeper whose little daughter, Emma, had whispered three words in a crowded memorial hall months later: “Your baby isn’t dead. She sleeps in our yellow room.”
