Chapter 3 - THE LAWYER RAN
Alonzo handed Maisie to Flora and went after him.
Martin shoved through the service doors, knocking a waiter into a cart of champagne.
“Martin!” Cedric shouted.
The lawyer didn’t stop.
Alonzo caught him near the loading corridor and slammed him against the wall.
“Where are you going?”
Martin fought for breath. “You have no right to hold me.”
“Then stop running like a guilty man.”
Cedric arrived seconds later.
“Tell me what I signed.”
Martin looked at Portia, who had followed with Graham.
Graham said, “Don’t say a word.”
That was enough.
Cedric turned to security. “Lock the estate gates. Nobody leaves with documents or devices until police arrive.”
Portia laughed bitterly. “You’re detaining wedding guests now?”
“I’m preserving evidence.”
Martin sagged against the wall.
“The document gives the Vale family temporary voting authority over your mother’s trust shares after marriage.”
Cedric stared.
“How many shares?”
“Thirty-one percent.”
The number hit harder than the broken vase.
With Cedric’s personal shares and Eleanor’s trust, Blackwood Holdings remained independent.
Without those trust votes, the Vales could force a merger Cedric had rejected twice.
Graham snapped, “It was a strategic partnership.”
“You hid it in a marriage contract.”
Portia said, “You would still own everything.”
“Ownership without control is decoration.”
Flora entered holding Maisie’s hand.
The child’s cheek was still red.
Cedric looked at Portia, and whatever softness had remained in him disappeared.
Then Flora spoke.
“Mr. Cedric, there’s something else.”
She held up a tiny brass key that had fallen from inside the envelope.
Alonzo read the engraved number.
“214.”
Cedric closed his fist around it.
His mother’s letter had said the proof was where his father proposed.
Cedric knew the place.
The old Grand Meridian Hotel.
May you like
But the hotel had been demolished ten years ago.
And its private vault had supposedly been emptied before demolition.
