Chapter 13 - A SECRET FROM THE PAST
While the legal team began preparing Vanessa’s appeal, I kept digging. If Marcus had framed her at the engagement party… what else had he done alone? What else had he hidden from everyone?
I returned to the file I had copied from his safe—the one marked ELENA — FINAL. I studied every page, every word, every note. And tucked between two documents, I found something I had missed before. A second autopsy report. Handwritten. Hidden deep at the bottom.
It had been written by a different doctor. Someone Marcus had tried to hide. And it said something that changed everything.
*“The child was not harmed. The mother was still alive when placed in the vehicle. There was no sign of struggle. She was unconscious but breathing. If help had arrived within minutes… she would have survived.”*
I gripped the paper, my hands shaking. Elena had been alive when Marcus put her in that car. He had driven her to the cliff. He had pushed her over. And he had watched her die.
But there was more. A final note, scrawled in the margin in Elena’s own handwriting. Found in her pocket after the crash.
*“If I don’t come home… tell Adrian. It’s Marcus. He’s been stealing from us. And he’s planning something terrible. For Sophie. Tell Adrian to protect her. No matter what.”*
Elena had known. She had suspected. She had tried to warn me. And Marcus had killed her before she could speak.
I fell back into the chair, tears burning my eyes. She had known everything. She had tried to save us. And I had spent all this time believing she had simply been in an accident. Believing that Marcus was my friend.
I read the note again and again.
*“Protect Sophie. No matter what.”*
That was her final wish. Her last command. And I would keep it. No matter the cost.
But as I sat there, grieving all over again, one question kept returning to me. Why had Elena suspected Marcus? What exactly had she discovered that made him so desperate to silence her?
I kept reading. And then I found it—buried in a list of dates and numbers—financial records Marcus had tried to hide. Elena had discovered that for years, Marcus had been slowly draining our family’s accounts. Not just large sums… but tiny, invisible transfers, month after month, adding up to millions. And she had found something even worse: he had been using our family’s name and reputation to launder money, running illegal businesses under our company’s umbrella.
She hadn’t just suspected theft. She had uncovered an entire criminal operation he had built right under our noses… using our name, our wealth, our trust. And she was going to expose him. That was why he killed her. Not out of jealousy. Not out of greed alone. Because she was about to destroy everything he had spent a lifetime building.
And then I saw one final line, written in Elena’s handwriting, dated the very day she died:
*“He’s not working alone. There’s someone above him. Someone powerful. I don’t know who… but they’re afraid of Adrian. They’re afraid of Sophie. That’s why they want us gone.”*
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My blood ran cold. Even with Marcus in jail… there was someone else. A shadowy figure pulling the strings. Someone so powerful Elena didn’t dare write their name down. Someone who had been afraid of my family for reasons I still didn’t understand.
I put the papers down slowly. We had exposed Marcus. We had partially cleared Vanessa’s name. But the real architect of everything—the person at the very top—was still out there. Watching. Waiting. And they still wanted Sophie gone.
