Chapter 6 - The Takeover
Marcus Blackwood did not wait for Victoria to come to him. He struck first.
At 9:17 the next morning — while Victoria was still at the warehouse district, while the police were still searching, while Rose was still missing — the stock market opened. And Blackwood Capital announced, in a press release timed to the second, that it had acquired a 24% stake in Harrington Financial. It was the largest single shareholder position in the company's history. And it was enough — just enough — to force a vote of no confidence in the CEO.
Victoria Harrington.
The board called her. The press called her. Her CFO called her, screaming into the phone. But Victoria did not answer. She was standing in a parking lot by the river, watching the police surround a warehouse that, it turned out, was empty. Rose was gone. The dot on Lily's phone had stopped blinking — the phone had been found, discarded, in a dumpster.
They had been too late.
"Victoria," Margaret said, her voice tight. "Blackwood just made his move. The board is meeting at noon. If you don't show up — if you don't defend yourself — they're going to vote you out. And if you're out, Blackwood wins. He gets the company. He gets everything."
Victoria looked at the warehouse. She looked at Lily, who was sitting in the car, her face pressed against the window, her eyes red. She looked at her phone — forty-two missed calls.
And she made a decision.
"Margaret. You go to the board meeting. You tell them I am otherwise engaged — saving my family. You tell them that if they vote me out today, they are voting out the only person standing between this company and Marcus Blackwood. You tell them that Blackwood is a criminal, that I have proof, and that I will present it within twenty-four hours. And you tell them —" She paused. "You tell them that if they betray me today, I will never forgive them. And I have a very long memory."
Margaret nodded. She left.
Victoria got in the car. She looked at Lily. "Sweetheart. We're going to do something I promised I would never do. We're going to make a deal with the devil."
She called Marcus Blackwood. He answered immediately.
"Victoria. I hear you're looking for a new job. The board meeting didn't go well, I assume?"
"Cut the crap, Marcus. What do you want? The company? It's yours. Take it. I don't care. Just let Rose go. Let her go, and I will walk away. I will resign. I will sign over my shares. I will disappear. You will never hear from me again."
There was a long silence. Then Blackwood laughed. It was a warm, genuine laugh — the laugh of a man who has just won.
"Oh, Victoria. That is tempting. That is so tempting. But you see, I don't just want the company. I want you to suffer. I want you to feel what my father felt when your father destroyed him. I want you to lose everything. And then — and only then — will I let the old woman go. Maybe."
Victoria's hand tightened on the steering wheel. "Marcus. If you hurt her —"
"I'm not going to hurt her, Victoria. Not yet. But time is running out. She's old. She's sick. She needs her medicine. How long do you think she'll last without it? A day? Two? I'd hurry if I were you."
He hung up.
Victoria sat there, in the car, in the parking lot by the river, and she felt something she had not felt in a very long time. She felt helpless.
Lily reached over and took her hand. "Victoria. Look at me."
Victoria looked.
"We are going to get her back. I know it. Because Abuela is the strongest person I know. And you're the second strongest. And I'm — well, I'm eight. But I'm pretty strong too. And we're family. And families don't —"
"Families don't leave each other," Victoria finished. She smiled, though it was broken. "I know, sweetheart. I know."
She started the car. She did not go to the board meeting. She did not go to the police. She went somewhere else entirely.
She went to see Daniel Cross.
He was staying in a motel by the airport — the kind of place where the sheets were questionable and the Wi-Fi was worse. Victoria did not knock. She had Carter kick the door in.
Daniel Cross was on the bed, counting cash. Fifty thousand dollars. The same fifty thousand Blackwood had paid him. He looked up, startled.
"What the —"
"Daniel," Victoria said, sitting down on the chair across from him. "We need to talk. About your daughter. About Rose. And about Marcus Blackwood."
Daniel Cross stared at her. Then he laughed. "You think I'm going to help you? Lady, Blackwood pays me. You don't."
"I will pay you. More. Double. Triple. Whatever he's paying, I'll beat it. But that's not why you're going to help me, Daniel. You're going to help me because if you don't, I am going to make sure that you never see Lily again. Not in a courtroom. Not on the street. Not in a photograph. You will be a ghost to her. And you will spend the rest of your life wondering what your daughter could have been."
She leaned forward. "But if you do help me — if you tell me where Rose is — I will drop the restraining order. I will allow supervised visits. I will even put you in the will, Daniel. A small trust. Enough to get clean. Enough to start over. All you have to do — is tell me where she is."
Daniel Cross stared at her. The cash in his hand suddenly felt very heavy. He had never been a good man. But he had never been a stupid one, either. And he could do math. Blackwood had paid him fifty thousand. Victoria was offering — what? A million? Two? And a relationship with his daughter. His daughter, who was worth fifty million.
"Blackwood has her at a place upstate," he said finally. "A hunting lodge. His father's. It's in the Adirondacks. He's had it for years. Nobody goes there. Nobody knows about it. He — he told me he was just going to hold her. Scare you. I didn't think — I didn't think he'd hurt her."
Victoria stood up. She tossed a card on the bed. "My lawyer will call you. If this is true — if Rose is there, alive — you get your deal. If it's a trap, Daniel, I will personally make sure you spend the next twenty years in prison. Do we understand each other?"
Daniel Cross nodded. He did not look up.
Victoria left. In the car, she called Carter. "Adirondacks. The Blackwood hunting lodge. I need a helicopter. I need the police. I need an ambulance. And I need it now."
Then she called Margaret. "Did the board vote?"
There was a pause. "They voted. Victoria — you're out. Pendleton made the motion. It passed 7 to 4. Blackwood's taking over as interim CEO. The announcement goes out at five."
Victoria closed her eyes. It was done. Twenty years. Gone. Just like that.
But then she opened them. She looked at Lily. She looked at the road ahead.
"Margaret. It's okay. Let him have the company. For now. Because by five o'clock tonight, Marcus Blackwood is going to have bigger problems than a CEO title. He's going to have a kidnapping charge. An arson charge. And a letter from his dead father. Send the letter to every news outlet in the country. Every single one. I want it everywhere. I want it on the front page of every paper. I want it lead on every news show. I want Marcus Blackwood to look up tonight and see his whole world burning."
She hung up. She looked at Lily. "You ready, kiddo?"
Lily nodded. She was holding the ring. She was holding it so tight her knuckles were white. "Let's go get Abuela."
The helicopter was waiting at the helipad on the roof of Harrington Tower. As they landed, Victoria looked up at the building — her building, the building her father had built, the building she had run for twenty years. And she smiled.
Because she knew something Marcus Blackwood did not know.
She did not need the building. She did not need the title. She did not need the money.
All she needed was her family.
And she was about to get them back.
The helicopter lifted off. The city shrank below them. Ahead, the Adirondack Mountains rose, dark and green and full of secrets. Somewhere in those mountains, Rose Martinez was waiting. Somewhere in those mountains, Marcus Blackwood was watching the news, and the first stories about his father's confession were just beginning to break.
And somewhere, in the back of the helicopter, an eight-year-old girl closed her eyes and held her mother's ring and prayed.
May you like
We will always find each other again.
She was going to need that promise now. More than ever.
