Chapter 4 - The Secret Account Under My Mother’s NameThe person who saved me from losing my career was the last person I expected.
Everett Wren.
He called at 5:17 the next morning.
“Come to my office.”
“I can't. My access is suspended.”
“Come to my house.”
I arrived forty minutes later.
Everett opened the door himself.
He looked older than he had a week earlier.
“Sit down.”
I did.
He poured coffee.
No sugar.
The way he always knew I took it.
“I didn't know you were in love with him,” he said.
I stared.
“You knew?”
“I knew Nathaniel Cross.”
“Since when?”
“Since he was twenty-one.”
I felt betrayed all over again.
“You've known his identity the entire time?”
“Yes.”
“And you hired me knowing he was connected to the company?”
“I hired you because you were the best analyst I'd ever interviewed.”
“That's not an answer.”
He sighed.
“No.”
“What aren't you telling me?”
He walked to a cabinet.
Inside was a stack of old files.
He placed one on the table.
It contained records from eighteen years earlier.
Investment memoranda.
Trust documents.
Letters.
And a photograph.
My mother.
I stopped breathing.
“Why do you have this?”
Everett looked at me.
“Your mother worked for us.”
I stood.
“What?”
“Briefly.”
“You told me she was a hotel manager.”
“That was before.”
“How?”
“She was a junior accountant.”
I shook my head.
“You knew my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because she asked me not to.”
The room blurred.
“She invested in something?”
Everett nodded.
“Your mother discovered an internal fraud involving a partner at Wren & Park.”
“And?”
“She reported it.”
“What happened?”
“She was threatened.”
I felt cold.
“By who?”
Everett didn't answer.
He opened another folder.
Inside were copies of handwritten notes.
E. Wren cannot know. Protect the girl.
My mother had written that.
Me.
I sat.
“What does this have to do with Nate?”
Everett looked tired.
“Everything.”
He explained.
My mother had been assigned to examine a client account controlled indirectly by the Cross family.
She discovered that Richard Cross had manipulated voting rights inside multiple companies using shell entities.
Her work became part of a private battle between Richard and his wife, Eleanor.
Eleanor had secretly created the trust that would later belong to Nate.
She didn't trust her husband.
She trusted Everett.
And she trusted my mother.
“Your mother helped create the structure that protects Nathaniel's voting rights,” Everett said.
I stared at him.
“So my mother knew his family.”
“Yes.”
“And he knew me because…”
“He didn't.”
That answer shocked me.
“Then how?”
“The first time Nathaniel met you was in the rain.”
I exhaled.
“So that was real.”
“Completely.”
I leaned back.
For the first time, pieces of my life began fitting together.
My mother's strange warnings.
My career at Wren & Park.
Nate's hidden identity.
The trust.
The acquisition.
None of them were separate.
They were chapters in a story written before I was born.
Everett looked at me.
“Richard Cross wants the company because he knows what the trust contains.”
“What?”
“A controlling mechanism.”
“Meaning?”
“The trust isn't simply stock.”
He handed me a document.
“It contains a contractual right to veto any transfer of control if the board is acting against the company's original charter.”
I stared at him.
“What does that have to do with Nate?”
“The right belongs to his mother's estate.”
“And he controls the estate.”
“Not yet.”
I looked up.
“What happens when he does?”
“Your father—” Everett corrected himself, “Richard Cross loses his path to control.”
“And that's why he's coming after Nate.”
“Yes.”
“And me?”
Everett's expression hardened.
“You are now the easiest way to discredit him.”
Before I could respond, my phone rang.
Jonathan Hale.
“Nate has disappeared,” he said.
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
“We lost contact with him thirty minutes ago.”
“Where?”
“We don't know.”
Then I heard shouting outside.
Everett stood.
A car screeched in front of the house.
Two black SUVs.
Men got out.
Everett's face went white.
“They found us.”
He grabbed the files.
“Go out the back.”
I shook my head.
“I'm not leaving without Nate.”
“You don't understand.”
“I understand enough.”
A window shattered.
Glass flew across the room.
Everett shoved me down.
The house alarm began screaming.
Then someone shouted:
“Ms. Keller! This is your last warning!”
I looked at Everett.
He whispered:
“Run.”
We fled through the kitchen door.
At the end of the alley, a black sedan waited.
The back door opened.
Nate was inside.
His shirt was torn.
Blood marked his cheek.
He reached for me.
“Get in.”
I climbed inside.
The car accelerated.
“Where were you?”
He looked at Jonathan in the driver's seat.
“My father took me.”
My blood ran cold.
“What?”
“He tried to make me sign away the trust.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did he hurt you?”
Nate hesitated.
“I got away.”
I touched the blood on his cheek.
“Tell me the truth.”
He met my eyes.
“He threatened you.”
The car went silent.
“What did he say?”
Nate stared out the window.
“He said if I didn't cooperate, he'd destroy Wren & Park.”
I looked at him.
“That means he knows about me.”
“He knows everything.”
I took his hand.
“Then we stop running.”
He looked at me.
“How?”
I answered before fear could stop me.
“We make them prove every lie.”
And that's when Jonathan said something neither of us expected.
“We don't have to.”
He opened his laptop.
“I found the account.”
“What account?” Nate asked.
May you like
Jonathan looked at me.
“The one created under your mother's name.”
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