Chapter 3 - The Ghost of Marcus
The room fell into a deathly silence. Julianna’s breath hitched in her throat. She looked at Richard, whose face had gone pasty white.
“Empty?” Julianna choked out, her voice cracking. “What do you mean empty? We held the memorial service! The casket was buried with full honors!”
“A closed casket filled with twenty bags of industrial sand,” Alexander said, stepping closer until his shadow consumed her. “The coroner who signed Marcus’s death certificate vanished forty-eight hours later. His body washed up on the shores of Lake Ontario with a bullet behind his ear.”
Julianna staggered back against the mahogany sideboard, her hands shaking so violently she knocked over a crystal decanter. It shattered, splashing amber bourbon across the floorboards. “That has nothing to do with us! Richard, tell him!”
Richard lay curled on the rug, clutching his crushed ribs. “I swear... I only handled the logistics! Julianna’s brother, Victor Kane—he was the one who orchestrated the extraction! He said Marcus had uncovered the balance sheets for the harbor project! If Marcus took those documents to the board, the Kane family would be wiped out!”
Alexander knelt slowly, looking directly into Richard’s eyes. “Where did Victor take him?”
“I don’t know!” Richard wept openly, all arrogance gone. “They said Marcus survived the plunge, but he was badly burned! Victor put him on a medical transport bound for an undocumented facility in the Black Forest! That was four months ago! They cut me out after that!”
Alexander stood up, taking out a pristine white linen handkerchief to wipe a speck of dust from his sleeve. “Briggs.”
Two guards entered from the foyer. “Sir?”
“Throw Richard into the lower sub-basement. Give him water, nothing else. He will talk again when his fever spikes.” Alexander turned his icy gaze toward Julianna. “As for you, Madam Vance... you wanted Lily to eat like an animal. For the next thirty days, your bank accounts are frozen. Your jewelry is confiscated as property of the estate trust. You will remain in the servant’s quarters under armed surveillance.”
“You can’t do this!” she shrieked, clawing at his sleeve. “I am legally his widow!”
Alexander pulled his arm away with absolute disgust. “You were never his widow, Julianna. Marcus filed for divorce five days before he disappeared. And I just had the paperwork registered with the federal registry.”
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Before she could scream, Alexander’s encrypted phone vibrated in his jacket. He pulled it out, seeing an unlisted international satellite signal. He answered, pressing it to his ear.
A harsh, mechanical voice came through the receiver: “If you want your son’s heart to keep beating, drop the federal inquiry by midnight, Vance.”
