Chapter 10 - Scent of Ash
The letter trembled in Elena's hands. Her father’s familiar script was hurried, written in the frantic hours before his death.
...Julian was never the mastermind. He is merely the enforcer. The person who authorized the takeover, who signed the transfer of the Vance trusts, is your own mother, Vivienne. She staged her disappearance five years ago to claim the offshore reserves. If you run, do not run from Julian. Run from her.
Elena’s heart slammed against her ribs. Her mother, whom she had mourned for half a decade, whose portrait hung draped in black in Julian’s estate, was alive—and was the architect of her destruction.
Suddenly, the lights inside the private viewing booth flickered and shut off. The hum of the bank’s ventilation system died.
In the total darkness, the smell of burning ozone and sulfur drifted through the vents. Elena shoved the passport, cash, and her father’s letter into her jacket pocket, her hand closing tightly around Arthur’s suppressed pistol.
The steel door to the viewing booth clicked open. A silhouette filled the doorway, backlit by the faint emergency lights of the vault lobby.
""Smart girl, checking your father's vault,"" a smooth, familiar voice murmured.
It wasn't Julian.
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Stepping into the faint light was an older woman with elegant posture, clad in a tailored cream trench coat, her cold gray eyes mirroring Elena's own.
""Hello, sweetheart,"" Vivienne Vance said, raising a silenced pistol directly at Elena’s chest. ""You really should have stayed in the car.""
