Chapter 5 - Vanessa Was Not Buying the Doctor
Grant met Vanessa alone in the conservatory.
He placed the café photographs in front of her.
The envelope.
The bank records.
The two-million-dollar transfer.
Vanessa looked at them and said only:
“So you finally checked.”
“You expected me to?”
“I hoped you would.”
“Explain.”
She walked to a stone planter and reached underneath its rim.
A waterproof envelope had been taped there.
Inside were copies of succession documents, Carter’s internal communications, and records from several shell companies.
Grant’s eyes narrowed.
“You knew.”
“Not at first.”
Vanessa sat across from him.
“My brother owed Carter nearly a million dollars. Gambling, bad investments, worse friends. Carter used the debt to make me cooperate.”
“With what?”
“Watching you.”
Grant’s expression hardened.
“He wanted to know whether you were remembering conversations. Whether you were becoming suspicious. Whether you were moving your legs.”
“And Owen?”
“The money I transferred helped keep his family alive. Carter wanted the transfers routed through Owen’s clinic so if anything surfaced, Owen looked purchased.”
That explained the café footage.
The perfect evidence.
Too perfect.
“What was inside the envelope?”
“Photographs proving Rebecca and Ben were alive.”
Grant looked down.
Owen had not stared at money.
He had stared at proof his family still existed.
Vanessa continued.
“I also paid a private investigator to trace Carter’s corporate transactions.”
She slid another page across the table.
Blackwood Shipping.
Blackwood Hospitality.
Three Manhattan commercial properties.
A private security subsidiary.
Carter had already prepared draft sale agreements.
Buyers were companies linked to intermediaries he controlled.
At discounts ranging from twenty to forty percent.
“He’s going to sell company assets to himself,” Grant said.
“Indirectly.”
“After he becomes acting controller.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“Leverage the businesses. Strip cash. Move assets outside the trust.”
Grant looked toward the city beyond the glass.
“How much?”
“Potentially more than six hundred million dollars.”
That was serious.
But still not enough.
Carter already lived like a multimillionaire.
Why risk murder, kidnapping, and everything else for more?
Vanessa seemed to read the question.
“There’s something underneath this,” she said. “Something Carter is more afraid of than money.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
Grant studied the documents.
One shell entity appeared repeatedly.
Ashcroft Meridian LLC.
“Who owns that?”
“Layered ownership. Cayman registration. Delaware manager.”
“Find the beneficial owner.”
“I’ve tried.”
“Try harder.”
Vanessa almost smiled.
“There he is.”
“Who?”
“The man I agreed to marry.”
Grant’s expression changed slightly.
Their engagement had survived six months of lies because neither had been willing to inspect it too closely.
He knew that now.
“When this is over,” he said, “we need to talk about us.”
Vanessa nodded.
“I know.”
No accusation.
No pleading.
That hurt more than drama would have.
Then she gave him the final piece Carter had not expected either of them to discover.
The emergency board meeting was scheduled for the night before day 180.
May you like
And every director Carter needed would be inside Grant’s mansion.
Exactly where Grant wanted them.
