Chapter 17 - THE SIN ADRIAN NEVER REMEMBERED|
The police arrested Vincent, Marcus, and several of the men guarding the warehouse.
Daniel was taken to a hospital for evaluation. Sera went with him, but Adrian remained behind, staring at the recording device as though it had become a weapon pointed directly at his heart.
The police wanted answers.
So did Sera.
Eleanor's message suggested that Adrian had signed an order connected to Daniel's disappearance. Yet Adrian insisted he had never authorized such an operation.
“I was twenty-seven,” he told Sera later, standing outside the hospital room. “I was handling hundreds of documents every week. My father put papers in front of me and told me they were restructuring agreements.”
“Could you have signed something without knowing what it meant?”
“Yes.”
“Then we need to find the original document.”
He nodded.
But the possibility haunted him.
If his signature had been used to authorize Daniel's destruction, then the man Sera loved might have been connected to the worst thing that had happened to her family.
The next morning, Adrian's lawyers located the original authorization in an archive belonging to the old family company.
The signature was his.
The document ordered the transfer of confidential employee records to a private security contractor. Among the listed names was Daniel Walsh.
Adrian stared at the page.
“I signed it.”
Sera felt something break inside her.
“Did you know what it was?”
“No.”
“How can I believe that?”
He looked at her.
“I can't ask you to.”
The answer hurt more than a denial would have.
Sera walked away.
For two days, they barely spoke.
She stayed with her father while Adrian surrendered his access to the company's records and began cooperating with investigators. He released internal correspondence, opened financial accounts to independent auditors, and publicly acknowledged that his signature appeared on a document connected to Daniel's disappearance.
The admission sent shockwaves through Chicago.
Investors withdrew. The company's board demanded his resignation. News outlets described him as either a criminal mastermind or the next victim of his family's corruption.
Adrian refused to blame anyone without evidence.
Then a retired executive contacted his legal team.
He had witnessed Vincent forcing Adrian to sign several documents during a period when Adrian was recovering from an injury sustained in a car accident. The executive remembered that Adrian had been heavily medicated and unaware of the documents' contents.
The evidence supported Adrian's claim, but it did not erase the consequences.
When Sera heard the news, she went to see him.
He stood alone in his office, surrounded by boxes of records.
“I should have questioned everything my father gave me,” he said.
“Maybe.”
He looked at her.
“I don't expect you to forgive me because I didn't understand what I signed.”
“Good.”
She approached him.
“But I need to know that the man I'm falling in love with is willing to take responsibility even when he isn't guilty of the original crime.”
Adrian nodded.
“I am.”
Sera touched his hand.
“I believe you.”
He closed his eyes.
For the first time in days, he allowed himself to breathe.
Then her phone rang.
May you like
The caller had no name.
When she answered, a distorted voice said, “If you believe Adrian Vale is innocent, ask him what happened to the woman who died in his mother's car.”
