Chapter 16 - BLOOD DOES NOT MAKE FAMILYNathan had faced hostile boardrooms, federal investigations, billion-dollar lawsuits, and men who smiled while planning ruin.
None of that prepared him for seeing his brother on his knees in the snow.
Adrian Cole was alive.
Too thin. Too pale. His wrists bruised from restraints. His hair streaked with gray though he could not have been much older than Nathan.
But his eyes were unmistakable.
Cole eyes.
Their father’s eyes.
Nathan’s eyes.
Victoria stood behind him with a gun pressed near his shoulder.
Samuel Reed stood to her left, face unreadable.
Nathan gripped the phone.
“Let him go.”
Victoria laughed.
“You say that like you have something I want.”
“The files.”
“I already have enough files.”
“No,” Nathan said. “You have fragments. You need Walter’s trust activation code.”
Victoria’s smile slipped.
Nathan knew he had guessed right.
Richard had found mention of the code in the lake house records. The legal trigger that would transfer voting control to Lily required proof of Charles’s crimes and one final authentication phrase held by the original trustee.
Victoria needed it to stop Lily.
Or steal it.
Adrian lifted his head.
When he saw Nathan, something passed across his face.
Not hope.
Recognition.
As if he had been told a bedtime story about a younger brother who lived in the sun.
Samuel stepped forward.
“Victoria, enough.”
She snapped, “Quiet.”
Grace’s voice suddenly came through Nathan’s second phone.
She had been listening through Mason’s open channel.
“Nathan?”
Victoria heard it and smiled.
“Oh good. The maid is here too.”
Grace’s voice turned hard.
“Samuel.”
The man flinched.
Grace continued, “Look at me. Whatever they told you, whatever they used against you, Lily trusted you.”
Samuel’s face cracked.
Victoria aimed the gun at Adrian’s head.
“Do not make this sentimental.”
Samuel looked at Nathan.
Then at Adrian.
Then at the phone in Nathan’s hand.
His voice broke.
“I didn’t betray you, Grace.”
Victoria’s eyes narrowed.
Samuel moved fast.
He slammed his shoulder into Victoria just as Mason’s men advanced.
The gun fired into the snow.
Adrian dropped flat.
Nathan ran.
Chaos exploded.
Victoria screamed. Mason tackled one guard. Samuel took a blow to the face and hit the ground. Nathan reached Adrian and dragged him behind a stone wall.
For one second, the brothers looked at each other.
Adrian whispered, “You’re real.”
Nathan’s throat closed.
“So are you.”
Then Victoria’s voice cut through the night.
“You idiots still don’t understand!”
Everyone froze.
She held up a small device.
A remote medical injector.
On the screen were Lily’s vitals, live from the mansion clinic.
Grace screamed through the phone.
Victoria’s smile returned.
“The cure is not at the hospital. It’s in me.”
Samuel went pale.
Adrian whispered, “No.”
Nathan turned slowly.
May you like
Victoria looked at him with triumph.
“Charles made me the carrier.”
