Chapter 11 - WHAT AMBROSE WANTED
Samuel had drafted Dad’s original trust.
He also knew why Ambrose wanted it destroyed.
Carter-Lane owned something nobody talked about.
Not a factory.
Not land.
Patents.
Three industrial battery patents Dad had considered worthless.
A decade later, they were worth hundreds of millions.
Ambrose knew.
Victoria learned later.
Dad’s illness gave them an opening.
Ambrose wanted the patents.
Victoria wanted the company.
They needed Dad weak enough to sign.
Samuel said Ambrose supplied the medication.
Victoria administered some of it without understanding exactly what it was.
I stared.
“So she didn’t know?”
Samuel shook his head.
“Not at first.”
“At first?”
He looked sick.
“She found out.”
“When?”
“Three months before Robert died.”
“And she kept giving it to him?”
Samuel closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The room went quiet.
I felt nothing.
That scared me.
Daniel reached for my hand.
Stopped before touching me.
I noticed.
I put my hand in his.
Just for a second.
Samuel continued.
Dad discovered the scheme.
He changed access codes.
Moved documents.
Prepared to expose them.
Then Ambrose threatened me.
Not directly.
A photograph.
Me leaving college.
Taken from across the street.
Dad backed down.
That explained the lake-house box.
The videos.
The fear.
Then Samuel revealed the worst part.
Dad did not die at home as Victoria told me.
He died in a private clinic owned by Ambrose.
Victoria moved him there two days before his death.
I had been told he was unconscious.
He wasn’t.
He asked for me.
Victoria refused.
I stood so fast the chair fell.
“No.”
Samuel cried.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“She said seeing him would traumatize you.”
I walked out.
Daniel followed.
I turned on him.
“Don’t say anything.”
He didn’t.
I hit the wall with my palm.
Again.
Again.
He caught my wrist on the third.
“Stop.”
I screamed at him.
He let go.
I slid to the floor.
For seven years, I had believed Dad died without knowing whether I loved him.
Victoria had stolen even that.
Then Samuel appeared in the doorway.
“There’s one more thing.”
I looked up.
“He left you a final voicemail.”
Victoria deleted it from your phone.
May you like
Samuel had a copy.
