Forty-Two Women Wanted the Dying Mafia Boss's Fortune

At 8:57 the next morning, Marcus Shaw told twelve board members that Daniel Rhodes was medically incapable of running his own company.

At 8:59, the board secretary began reading the emergency resolution.

At 9:00, Daniel walked through the door.

I was three steps behind him.

Anna was beside me.

Grant and Elias followed.

The room went silent so completely that I heard the soft click of the door closing.

Daniel wore a charcoal suit.

He was still thinner than he had been in photographs from the year before. His face was pale. Dr. Hart had warned him not to stand too long, and I knew there was a bottle of water in his briefcase because I had put it there myself.

But he was alive.

Alert.

And very much not the dying ghost Marcus had described.

Marcus stood at the head of the table.

His face lost all color.

"Daniel."

Daniel glanced at the chair Marcus had taken.

"You're in my seat."

Nobody moved.

Marcus recovered quickly.

"You shouldn't be here."

"My doctor disagrees."

"Howard Vale certified you medically incapacitated."

"Howard Vale is currently under criminal investigation for falsifying medical records."

Several board members turned toward Marcus.

He raised one hand.

"This is a private family dispute."

"No," Daniel said. "It's fraud."

Grant began distributing folders.

Each contained the independent medical findings, copies of altered records, financial transfers connected to Marcus, and documentation from my father's audit.

One board member, a severe woman named Celia Hartman, read the first page and looked up sharply.

"Forty million dollars?"

Marcus's jaw tightened.

"Those documents are being misrepresented."

Daniel remained standing.

"Then explain them."

"Not in front of outsiders."

His eyes moved to me.

I smiled sweetly.

"I get that a lot."

Daniel did not look away from Marcus.

"Maya Brooks is the daughter of Samuel Brooks."

The name meant something to the older members.

Celia sat back.

"Thomas's accountant?"

"Yes."

Marcus's face hardened.

Daniel continued.

"Samuel preserved the audit my father commissioned before he died."

For the first time, Marcus looked afraid.

Not nervous.

Afraid.

He glanced toward the door.

Elias stood beside it.

"You're not being detained," Elias said calmly. "But leaving now would be memorable."

Marcus looked at Daniel.

"You think this proves I killed your father?"

Daniel's expression did not change.

"I think it proves you stole from him. Vale has admitted interfering with his medical care at your request. The rest will be decided by investigators and a court."

Marcus laughed.

"A court? You?"

The contempt in his voice cut across the room.

"Thomas would be embarrassed."

Daniel's face went still.

Marcus saw the wound and pressed harder.

"Your father built an empire because he understood fear. You turned soft the moment a woman with broken glasses opened your curtains."

Every eye in the room shifted toward me.

I wanted the carpet to swallow me.

Daniel looked at Marcus.

Then he smiled.

"You're right about one thing."

Marcus frowned.

"Maya opened the curtains."

Daniel stepped closer to the table.

"And once there was light in the room, I could finally see who was standing in the dark."

Nobody spoke.

Marcus's mouth tightened.

"You think she loves you?"

Daniel's expression changed.

Mine probably did, too.

"She answered an advertisement offering money to marry a dying man. She's not different from the others. She's just smarter."

I expected Daniel to defend me.

He did something better.

He looked at me.

"Maya?"

I understood.

He was giving me my own voice.

I stepped forward.

"The original contract offered ten million dollars if I married Daniel and stayed until his death."

A few board members exchanged glances.

Marcus smiled faintly.

I continued.

"I never signed it."

His smile vanished.

Grant placed a copy of the unsigned agreement on the table.

"Miss Brooks has declined every payment beyond reimbursement for expenses," he said.

I looked at Marcus.

"I came because I knew what it was like to sit beside someone who was dying. I stayed because everyone around Daniel was more comfortable with his funeral than his questions."

Marcus's face tightened.

"Touching."

"No," I said. "Inconvenient. Especially for you."

Anna stepped beside me.

Marcus's expression changed again.

"Anna."

She stared at him.

"My name is not something you get to use like we're friends."

"I protected you for twenty-nine years."

"You lied to me for twenty-nine years."

She dropped the forged letters in front of him.

"You made me hate a brother who didn't know I existed."

Marcus looked around the table.

Control was slipping away.

You could see him calculating.

Then he changed tactics.

"Thomas was weak," he said.

Daniel's eyes darkened.

"Careful."

"He was. He had power and apologized for it. He wanted to clean up the businesses, sell off profitable operations, bring in regulators, turn everything legitimate. Do you know how many people would have been destroyed?"

Daniel's voice remained cold.

"So you stole from him."

"I preserved what we built."

"You built nothing."

Marcus's face twisted.

"I built all of it! While Thomas played king, I made the numbers work. I kept people loyal. I moved money when banks refused us. I handled problems he didn't want to see. And then he decided he had a conscience."

The room was silent.

Celia Hartman closed her folder.

"You are admitting to misappropriation?"

Marcus realized too late how much he had said.

He looked toward Grant.

Grant's phone was recording openly on the table.

"You set me up."

Daniel shook his head.

"No. I gave you a room and let you talk."

Marcus's face went red.

"You ungrateful little--"

He moved around the table.

Elias stepped forward.

Daniel raised one hand.

Elias stopped.

Marcus came within six feet of Daniel.

"You think you won because you're alive?"

Daniel looked at him.

"Yes."

The simplicity of it stunned everyone.

Marcus laughed bitterly.

Daniel continued.

"Not the company. Not the board vote. Not the money. I woke up this morning and ate breakfast with my sister and the woman who refused my ten million dollars. I already won."

Something in Marcus broke.

He reached inside his jacket.

Elias moved instantly.

Two other security officers entered from the hall.

There was a brief struggle, a shout, a chair falling backward.

Then Marcus was pinned against the table.

What he had reached for was not a gun.

It was a phone.

On the screen was an open message thread with Leon Briggs.

Elias took it.

His face changed as he read.

"He ordered someone to go to the mansion."

Daniel went cold.

"Who?"

Elias scrolled.

Then looked at me.

"Mrs. Alvarez."

My heart stopped.

Daniel was already reaching for his phone.

Mrs. Alvarez answered on the fourth ring.

Her voice shook.

"Mr. Rhodes?"

"Are you safe?"

"I think so. Security locked us downstairs. A man came through the service gate with a delivery van. They caught him."

Daniel closed his eyes briefly.

"Stay with security."

"Yes, sir."

"And Rosa?"

I had never heard him use her first name.

"Yes?"

"Thank you for answering."

Silence.

Then Mrs. Alvarez began crying.

"Come home, Daniel."

His face changed.

"I will."

When the call ended, the board meeting was over.

Not formally.

But everyone knew.

Celia Hartman stood.

"I move that Marcus Shaw be immediately removed from all offices and authorities pending investigation."

Another director seconded.

The vote was unanimous.

Grant had already coordinated with law enforcement regarding the financial records, Rebecca's abduction, and the attempted intimidation at the mansion. Officers were waiting in the building lobby.

Marcus saw them through the glass wall when the elevator doors opened.

Before he was escorted out, Daniel asked Elias to step back.

For one tense second, everyone in the boardroom expected the old Daniel Rhodes to appear. The man from the stories. The man who settled betrayal privately and permanently.

Marcus seemed to expect it, too.

He lifted his chin.

"Go ahead," he said. "Prove you're still your father's son."

Daniel stared at him.

I could almost see the argument happening inside him. Rage had been his first language for years. Revenge would have been easier than restraint. It would have felt immediate. Clean. Satisfying.

Then Daniel glanced at Anna.

At me.

At the folders of evidence on the table.

He exhaled.

"My father trusted the wrong man and died without getting to correct it," he said. "I'm not repeating his last mistake by letting you decide who I become."

Marcus's expression flickered.

Daniel nodded toward the waiting officers.

"Take him."

It was not mercy.

It was something harder for Daniel.

It was surrendering control to a process he could not command.

Later, in the elevator, I asked if he regretted it.

"Ask me tomorrow," he said.

"That's not an answer."

"I'm trying this healthy emotional development you keep recommending. Apparently it involves delayed conclusions."

Anna laughed.

Vincent, who had joined us downstairs, said, "I liked you better when you threatened people."

Daniel looked at him.

"You were unconscious for the important part."

"Still counts."

For the first time, he looked old.

He turned to Daniel.

"Your father would hate what you've become."

Daniel studied him.

Then said, "You don't get to speak for my father anymore."

Marcus was taken away.

No gunfire.

No dramatic execution.

No mafia vengeance.

Just handcuffs, evidence boxes, attorneys, and the slow machinery of consequences.

Daniel watched until the elevator closed.

Then his knees buckled.

I caught him on one side.

Anna caught him on the other.

"Sit down," I ordered.

"I'm fine."

"You are medically incapable of saying anything else."

Celia laughed.

Daniel glared at her.

"Don't encourage her."

We got him into a chair.

He drank the water I had packed.

His hand shook.

I knelt in front of him.

"You did it."

"We did it."

"Your father did it. My father did it. Rebecca did it. Vincent did it. Anna did it."

Daniel looked at me.

"You did it."

My eyes filled.

He leaned forward until his forehead touched mine.

The boardroom disappeared.

The executives disappeared.

The guards disappeared.

"Maya," he whispered.

"What?"

"I don't want you to stay because of a contract."

My heart stumbled.

"Okay."

"I don't want you to stay because I'm sick."

"Okay."

"I don't want you to stay because your father saved evidence about mine."

"Daniel--"

"I want you to stay because when you leave a room, I notice. Because when you argue with me, I listen even when I pretend I don't. Because I had three months left until you walked into my bedroom, and now I have no idea how much time I have, but I know I want as much of it with you as you'll give me."

I forgot how to breathe.

Then I kissed him.

Not carefully.

Not politely.

And definitely not because a contract told me to.

When we pulled apart, Daniel looked almost dazed.

"Was that a yes?"

"That was a kiss."

"Maya."

"You still need to ask a better question."

His eyes narrowed.

"You're impossible."