Chapter 4 - The Warehouse Where My Mother Was Held
Nathaniel assembled a team.
I remained at headquarters.
For the first time, I understood why adults had never explained anything.
Danger was real.
Not the kind in movies.
The kind that made your stomach hurt.
The kind that caused adults to whisper.
The kind that made Nathaniel stare at a clock.
He returned twelve hours later.
Alone.
His jacket was torn.
Blood covered his hand.
“Where is she?”
He looked at me.
“Not there.”
“What happened?”
“It was a trap.”
He sat.
“Your mother wasn't inside.”
I felt crushed.
“But we found something.”
He opened a box.
Inside was a cassette tape.
Old.
Labeled in my grandmother's handwriting.
Nathaniel played it.
My grandmother's voice filled the room.
If you are hearing this, Northbridge has survived.
I wanted you to know that Julian is innocent.
Malcolm knows.
The person who betrayed us is closer than you think.
There was a pause.
Then she said something that made Nathaniel freeze.
Eleanor must never return to Chicago.
He looked at me.
“Why?”
We listened again.
The tape continued.
The girl must remain hidden until she turns eighteen.
Ruby is not only Julian's daughter.
She is the beneficiary of the Hart Trust.
The trust controls twenty-seven percent of Graves Holdings.
I stared.
Twenty-seven percent.
I owned a piece of the empire.
My mother had never told me.
Nathaniel looked stunned.
“That means your grandmother transferred voting rights to you.”
“Why?”
“Because she didn't trust me.”
I felt hurt.
“Do you hate her?”
“No.”
“Then why are you sad?”
“Because she knew I might become like my father.”
I looked at him.
“Are you?”
He stared at the tape.
“I almost did.”
Then the recording ended.
We sat in silence.
I asked,
“What happens when I turn eighteen?”
“The shares become active.”
“And until then?”
“I'm your trustee.”
I blinked.
“What?”
Nathaniel sighed.
“She named me.”
I suddenly understood why he had looked so frightened when he saw the eviction notice.
If my trust was compromised, everything was compromised.
But why the eviction?
Nathaniel checked the notice.
It wasn't just eviction.
It contained a hidden clause.
The property manager was authorized by a company called Northbridge Residential.
Meaning the people hunting my mother had been controlling our home.
The rent had been deliberately increased.
The eviction had been engineered.
They wanted us displaced.
Found.
Then captured.
Nathaniel stared at the page.
“They weren't trying to evict you.”
“What were they trying to do?”
“Force your mother to move.”
“Why?”
“To find out where she goes.”
His voice became bitter.
“They've been tracking you for years.”
I thought about every apartment.
Every school.
Every city.
My mother had moved us seven times.
I had thought we were simply unlucky.
We weren't.
She had been running.
Nathaniel looked at me.
“Do you remember where you were born?”
“Yes.”
He frowned.
“Where?”
I gave him the hospital name.
He checked.
It had closed fifteen years ago.
But the records still existed.
We went there.
The building was abandoned.
Inside, we found an old archive.
My birth certificate was missing.
But another record remained.
Baby Ruby Hart.
Mother: Eleanor Hart.
Father: Julian Graves.
Not Hart.
Graves.
My father was Nathaniel's brother.
We had always known him by the wrong surname.
Then I saw something else.
The birth date.
The same day Northbridge was created.
Nathaniel stared.
“That's impossible.”
“What?”
“Northbridge was formed the day you were born.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
He didn't answer.
Instead, he opened another file.
The original trust documents.
My grandmother had anticipated everything.
She had placed my shares in a protected trust.
The only way to access them before eighteen was through a trustee.
Nathaniel.
But there was a second trustee.
My mother.
If she died, Nathaniel became sole trustee.
Suddenly, her disappearance made sense.
They didn't just want her because she knew secrets.
They wanted her because she was the only person preventing Nathaniel from controlling my inheritance.
Someone wanted him to lose control.
Someone wanted him blamed.
Someone wanted him dead.
Then the lights went out.
A door slammed.
Footsteps.
Nathaniel pulled me behind him.
A voice echoed.
“Give me the girl.”
Nathaniel raised his weapon.
“No.”
A second voice.
“Then she dies.”
I recognized it.
Vivian.
My aunt.
She stepped from the shadows.
“You don't understand what you're protecting.”
Nathaniel stared.
“You kidnapped my niece.”
“I saved her.”
“From what?”
“From you.”
I looked at Vivian.
“Where is my mother?”
Vivian's expression changed.
“She never wanted you to know.”
“Know what?”
“You are not the only heir.”
Nathaniel's face went pale.
May you like
Vivian whispered,
“Your father had another child.”
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