Chapter 22 - Lillian’s Choice
For one terrible second, I thought Lillian had betrayed us.
Conrad smiled when he saw my face.
“You underestimated her.”
Lillian stood twenty feet away, gun pointed toward me.
Her expression was unreadable.
“I gave you the flash drive,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Which is exactly why Conrad knew you’d trust me.”
Adrian lifted his head.
One eye was swollen shut.
“Emily,” he rasped. “Don’t give him anything.”
Conrad struck him across the back of the head with the pistol.
Eleanor screamed.
“Stop!”
“Quiet.”
Conrad looked toward me.
“The ledger.”
I placed it on the concrete floor.
“Let them go.”
“You’re negotiating from a strange position.”
“You need Adrian alive.”
Conrad’s eyes narrowed.
“So you discovered the reserve fund.”
“I discovered everything.”
“No.”
He smiled.
“You discovered what Samuel wanted you to discover.”
He stepped closer.
“Samuel was sentimental at the end. He believed he could turn thieves into cautionary tales and ordinary people into heroes.”
“You sound jealous.”
His smile vanished.
Good.
“Thomas Bell designed the system,” I continued. “Samuel built the company. Adrian inherited the name. Eleanor married into it.”
I looked directly at him.
“What exactly did you create?”
His face hardened.
Lillian’s eyes flicked toward me.
A tiny movement.
Almost nothing.
But I saw it.
Conrad raised his gun.
“I created obedience.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You created fear.”
“They are the same thing.”
“That’s what weak men tell themselves.”
His arm straightened.
“Emily,” Daniel’s voice crackled faintly through the transmitter hidden beneath my collar.
Too faint for Conrad to hear.
The maritime team was close.
I needed time.
“What happens after Adrian unlocks the account?”
“I disappear.”
“With forty million?”
“With enough.”
“And Eleanor?”
Conrad looked at her.
“She has served her purpose.”
Eleanor’s face went white.
Adrian struggled against the ropes.
“You touch her—”
Conrad kicked his chair.
“You spent your entire life complaining about that woman, and now you want to defend her?”
“She’s my mother.”
Something painful moved across Eleanor’s face.
Maybe she had waited forty years to hear her son say that without calculation.
Conrad pointed toward the ledger.
“Lillian. Pick it up.”
She walked toward me.
Her gun remained raised.
When she bent to retrieve the book, she whispered:
“When I move, get down.”
My heart slammed.
She stood.
Turned.
Then everything happened at once.
Lillian fired.
Not at me.
At the overhead lights.
Darkness swallowed the warehouse.
I dropped.
Conrad fired blindly.
Adrian shouted.
Eleanor screamed.
Lillian fired again.
A bullet struck metal.
Then the warehouse doors exploded inward.
Federal agents poured through from the waterfront entrance.
“FBI! DROP YOUR WEAPON!”
Conrad ran.
I crawled toward Adrian and Eleanor.
Lillian appeared beside me.
“Cut them loose.”
She handed me a knife.
“You planned this?”
“I contacted prosecutors yesterday.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“They thought you’d act differently if you knew.”
“I hate when people do that.”
“So do I.”
Despite the gunfire, she laughed once.
Agents chased Conrad into the rear loading yard.
I cut Eleanor free.
She immediately reached for Adrian.
“My baby.”
He looked stunned by the tenderness.
For once, neither of them had anything to manipulate.
They were simply terrified.
A helicopter searchlight swept across the yard.
Then a gunshot cracked outside.
Silence followed.
Mara’s voice came through the radio.
“Suspect down.”
My breath stopped.
“Alive?”
Static.
Then:
“Alive. Gunshot to the leg.”
Conrad Voss had finally run out of places to run.
Agents dragged him into the warehouse minutes later.
His silver hair was wet with rain.
Blood soaked his trouser leg.
He saw me.
“You think this ends with me?”
“No.”
I stood.
“This ends with everyone who thought people like you were untouchable.”
He laughed.
Then agents pushed him toward the ambulance.
Lillian lowered her weapon and handed it to Mara.
Her hands began to shake only after it was over.
“What happens to you now?” I asked.
She looked toward the federal agents.
“I testify.”
“Against Adrian too?”
Adrian heard.
His face tightened.
Lillian nodded.
May you like
“Yes.”
For the first time, she did not look at him for permission.
