Chapter 3 - The Secret Alliance
The tension inside the small library study room snapped like a stretched wire. The lead guard, whose name tag read Vance, stepped forward, his massive frame blocking the only exit.
"Give me the laptop, Ethan," Vance ordered coldly. "Your father has been very patient with your little teenage rebellion, but this ends today."
Ethan didn't hesitate. He slammed the laptop shut, grabbed it off the table, and shoved it straight into my arms.
"Run, Mary!" Ethan yelled aloud, his voice raw and booming, shocking the guards who had never heard him speak before.
Before Vance could react, Ethan threw his body against the lead guard, knocking him backward into his two associates. Tables overturned, and books rained down onto the floor.
"Get off me, you deaf brat!" Vance snarled, shoving Ethan violently against the wall.
I didn't waste the second Ethan had bought me. I hugged the laptop tight against my chest, dodged around the scrambling bodyguards, and burst out of the room into the library corridor. Behind me, I heard Ethan shouting, followed by the heavy sound of a struggle.
"Catch her!" Vance roared.
I sprinted down the carpeted hallway, my heart pounding wildly against my ribs. I turned sharp corners, ducking between rows of tall bookshelves as the heavy footsteps of two security guards echoed close behind me. I reached the emergency stairwell, threw the door open, and flew down the steps three at a time, spilling out onto the busy downtown city street.
I ducked into an alley, slipping into a crowded subway station just as the guards burst out onto the sidewalk, looking around frantically in vain.
Losing them in the underground crowd, I finally collapsed onto a bench inside a moving subway train, clutching the laptop to my chest, trembling violently. I had saved the laptop, but Ethan was in their hands. They were going to drag him back to his father's estate, and God only knew what Christopher Hale would do to him now.
I spent the next six hours in hiding at a quiet 24-hour diner on the edge of the city, using the free Wi-Fi to go through the files on Ethan's laptop.
The autumn orchard painting in the Hale estate contained the real documents—the original stock transfers and Eleanor's true will leaving eighty percent of the conglomerate to Ethan upon his twentieth birthday. Ethan had turned twenty just last month. Christopher was currently illegally liquidating the foundation before Ethan could ever claim what was rightfully his.
At 2:00 AM, my phone buzzed with an incoming text from a new unknown number.
Mary. It’s Ethan. They locked me in my bedroom at the estate. My father took my phone and my hearing aids. He thinks I am completely helpless now. But he forgot that my mother built a service elevator behind the wine cellar that leads to the garden. The Grand Met Gala is tomorrow night at 8:00 PM at the Imperial Hotel. He plans to sign the final liquidation papers live on stage in front of the press.
I typed back frantically: Ethan! Are you okay? Did they hurt you?
I am fine, he replied a minute later. Their cruelty doesn't hurt me anymore, Mary. For the first time in my life, because you stood up for me, I know I am not alone. I am escaping the estate tonight with the physical documents from behind the painting. I need you to meet me at the Imperial Hotel tomorrow. We take him down together in front of the whole world.
May you like
A surge of warmth and adrenaline flushed through my veins. The girl with an eviction notice in her purse was no longer just a struggling waitress. I was the only witness who could verify the truth, the only translator who could prove Eleanor's signed legacy.
"Let's burn his kingdom down," I whispered to myself.
