Chapter 12 - PORTIA IN THE GREENHOUSE
Portia watched the footage with tears running down her face.
“I went there to warn her.”
Cedric stared.
“Warn her about what?”
“My father.”
Graham closed his eyes.
Portia continued.
“I found the proxy agreement on his desk. I realized he was using the wedding.”
“So you told my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you still marry me?”
Portia’s answer came out small.
“Because after Eleanor died, my father told me I would go to prison if I backed out.”
“For what?”
“Transfers I signed.”
Graham had put shell-company documents in front of Portia when she was twenty-four.
She signed without reading.
Years later, he used them as leverage.
Cedric felt no sympathy for the slap, the lies, or the attempted cover-up.
But the conspiracy had another shape now.
“What did my mother say in the greenhouse?”
Portia wiped her face.
“She said she already knew.”
“And Frances?”
“She came in before me. They argued.”
“About what?”
“I only heard one sentence.”
Portia looked toward the dark greenhouse windows.
“Eleanor told her, ‘Henry left you the weapon, Frances. I’m taking away the ammunition.’”
Project Orchid.
The files were the weapon.
Money was the ammunition.
Mara called from the command room.
They had located Frances’s maintenance van.
Abandoned at Blackwood Airfield.
One company jet had taken off without clearance.
Destination unknown.
But before leaving, Frances accessed a secure corporate server.
She downloaded one file.
Cedric read the name.
ELEANOR_FINAL_TESTIMONY.mp4
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His mother had recorded a testimony.
And Frances had just stolen the only known copy.
