Chapter 9 - The Blonde Maid Faced Her Family's Biggest Betrayal While the Mafia King Surrendered His Empire—But a Last-Minute Confession Threatened to Separate Them Forever
I read my father's message twice before the meaning reached me.
CHASE IS HERE. HE SAYS HE HAS THE SECOND BOX.
My first instinct was to run. My second was to call Daniel. He stood a few feet away, surrounded by business partners who were still trying to understand Thomas's arrest. When he saw my face, he excused himself immediately.
"What happened?"
I handed him the phone. He read the message, then gave it back.
"We call Ruiz," he said.
"Dad's alone with Chase."
"Then we tell her that first."
I was already dialing. Ruiz answered on the second ring. She told me to remain at the mansion while officers went to my parents' house. I hated the instruction, but I knew charging into a dangerous situation would only make things worse.
"He might hurt Dad," I said.
"We're treating it as urgent," she replied. "Do not contact Chase. Do not go to the house."
Daniel stayed beside me while I waited. He didn't promise that everything would be fine. He knew better. Instead, he asked Rosa to bring water, made sure Brooke was safe in the upstairs sitting room, and stayed with me in the quiet library.
Twenty minutes later Ruiz called again. Officers had reached the house. Chase was gone. Robert had a bruise on his cheek and a cut near his eyebrow, but he was alive. He had refused medical transport and was now speaking to investigators.
"Did they find the box?" I asked.
"Not yet. Your father says Chase took it."
I closed my eyes. I had spent years believing my father was passive because he hated conflict. Now I wondered how much of his silence had been fear, and how much had been guilt.
The next morning I visited him at the hospital, where he'd finally agreed to be examined. Ruiz approved the visit after taking his statement. Daniel offered to drive me but waited outside the room when I asked for privacy.
Dad sat on the edge of the bed with a paper cup of coffee in his hands. He looked older than he had at Christmas. A strip of medical tape covered his eyebrow.
"Audrey," he said. "I'm glad you're here."
"I need the truth."
He looked down at his cup. "I know."
"Did you sign documents after Edward Collins died?"
He nodded.
"Why?"
"Your grandfather was terrified. Harlan told him the greenhouse would be destroyed if he didn't transfer a strip of land beside the rail spur. Samuel refused. Then Harlan came to me. He knew Elaine and I were expecting Brooke. He knew we had bills. He offered enough money to pay our debts."
"And you took it."
"I signed papers saying I had witnessed an agreement between Samuel and the company. It wasn't true."
The room seemed to narrow around me. "You forged Grandpa's consent?"
"Yes."
"You let him lose the greenhouse?"
"I thought I could fix it later. I thought the money would protect us."
"Did you know what happened to Edward?"
"Not until afterward. Harlan said the death was an accident. Then I saw the photographs Samuel had taken. I understood he'd lied. But by then I had already signed."
I stared at my father. He had taught me to tell the truth, to work hard, to never take what wasn't mine. He had let me grow up thinking Grandpa's business collapsed because of bad luck. He had watched me lose Juniper & Rose while knowing that a fraudulent land deal had helped create the financial mess that followed.
"You could have told me," I whispered.
"I was ashamed."
"You let your shame become my problem."
He began to cry. I had never seen him cry before. It didn't make me feel triumphant. It made me tired.
"I'll give Ruiz everything," he said. "I told her about the papers. I told her where the original agreement was stored before Chase took it. I'll accept whatever happens."
"That's what you should have done years ago."
He nodded. "I know."
When I left the hospital room, Daniel was waiting near the elevators. I walked toward him and stopped. He held out his hand, palm up, asking without words. I took it.
"I don't know how to be angry at people I still love," I said.
"You can do both," he replied.
That afternoon the investigation moved faster. Police located Chase at a motel outside the city. He tried to leave through a service entrance and was arrested without injury. The second wooden box was recovered from his car. Inside were original land-transfer papers, a photograph of Edward's damaged brake assembly, and a cassette recording Samuel had made after confronting Harlan.
The recording was old and distorted, but technicians were able to recover enough sound for investigators to understand the conversation. Harlan admitted that Edward had discovered a scheme involving stolen freight revenues and illegal transfers of dock property. He threatened Samuel and said Thomas would ensure Edward never reached the meeting with his son. The recording did not capture the murder itself, but combined with the garage records, witness statements, and financial trail, it gave investigators a stronger case.
Chase began cooperating once his lawyer reviewed the evidence. He said Marcus had promised to pay off his debts if he helped gain control of the greenhouse property. He admitted moving my chair at Christmas because Marcus wanted Daniel to lose his temper in front of witnesses. If Daniel assaulted a guest, Marcus hoped the scandal would weaken him with business partners and distract him from the north-dock audit.
"I thought it was a prank," Chase told investigators, according to the statement Ruiz later summarized for us. "I didn't think she'd get hurt."
I had heard that excuse before. It sounded even smaller now.
Brooke asked whether I wanted to read her statement. I said yes. She had admitted laughing, encouraging Chase's cruelty, and ignoring warning signs about his business. She had also described the documents he forced her to sign. It was painful to read. It was also the first time my sister had described what she did without blaming me for how I reacted.
Meanwhile, Daniel made a decision that shocked his business partners. He announced that he would resign from direct control of the Blackridge-connected shipping and security operations he had inherited, submit the legitimate companies to independent audits, and cooperate with federal investigators examining the criminal networks tied to the docks.
He told me before he told the board.
We were sitting in the conservatory. Outside, the snow had begun to melt into gray ribbons along the garden paths. Inside, the roses were opening beneath warm lights.
"I don't know what the investigation will find," he said. "I signed contracts I shouldn't have signed. I trusted men I shouldn't have trusted. Some of the business was already dirty when I inherited it, but I can't pretend that makes me innocent."
I watched him carefully. "Are you doing this because of me?"
"You made me see the life I wanted. But the decision is mine. It has to be."
"And if you lose everything?"
"Then I'll find out who I am without it."
He looked frightened when he said that. Not frightened of prison or enemies, though those possibilities were real. Frightened of being ordinary. Frightened of discovering that the power he'd built around himself was the only thing holding him together.
"I think you'll still be Daniel," I said.
He smiled faintly. "I hope that's enough."
"For me, it might be."
His expression changed. "Audrey—"
"Don't make me say more yet," I interrupted, smiling through tears. "I'm still figuring it out."
He nodded. "I'll wait."
I shook my head. "Don't put your life on hold for me. Build something good because you want it. Then maybe we'll see where we meet."
The following weeks were difficult. There were interviews, subpoenas, and endless meetings with lawyers. News outlets covered Thomas's arrest and the investigation into Harlan's network. Some headlines made Daniel sound like a hero. Others made him sound like the villain. He refused to use his influence to silence either kind.
My own name appeared in an article about the Christmas incident. A photograph showed me on the marble floor with Daniel kneeling beside me. I hated seeing that moment reduced to entertainment. I spoke with a reporter only once, to say that I had been hurt and humiliated, that nobody deserved to be treated that way, and that the investigation should be about the people who had abused their power.
Then I went back to work on my business plan.
Rosa helped me inventory the floral equipment I'd stored in the mansion's service wing. Priya introduced me to a small-business adviser who had no connection to Daniel. Brooke offered to help build a website, but I told her she would need to sign a normal contract and be paid a normal rate. She laughed, then cried, then agreed.
For the first time, my future felt like something I could design myself.
I found a storefront on a quiet street near the river. It had tall windows, a back room large enough for classes, and a tiny courtyard where I could build a greenhouse. The rent was frightening but possible. I applied for financing using my own credit and a detailed plan. I did not ask Daniel to guarantee it.
The bank approved a smaller loan than I wanted. I took it anyway.
That evening I called Daniel from the empty shop. "I signed the lease."
His delighted laugh filled the phone. "Audrey, that's wonderful."
"I have no shelves. No customers. The ceiling needs paint."
"Sounds like a business."
"Sounds like a disaster."
"Sometimes those look similar at the beginning."
I smiled. "Would you like to come see it?"
"Only if you want me there."
"I do."
He arrived with no entourage, carrying two paper cups of coffee. He walked through the empty shop as though it were a cathedral. When I showed him the courtyard, he stood in the doorway for a long time.
"What?" I asked.
"I can picture it," he said. "Your roses. Your name on the window. People coming here because you make things beautiful."
I looked at him. The dangerous man who had once terrified an entire ballroom was standing in a dusty storefront, smiling at the possibility of a flower shop.
I wanted to kiss him.
I didn't. Not yet.
Before he left, his phone rang. He listened for a few seconds, then went still.
"What is it?" I asked.
He ended the call. "Leah says Harlan has offered to testify. He wants immunity for some of the financial crimes."
"That could be good, couldn't it?"
"Maybe. He says he has proof of who drove my father's car into the river."
I waited.
Daniel's eyes filled with something I couldn't name.
"And he says the person is still alive," he whispered. "He says it wasn't Thomas."
The weeks of uncertainty also taught me how to be alone without feeling abandoned. On evenings when Daniel had meetings with his attorneys, I locked the shop, made tea in the tiny back room, and balanced invoices until the numbers made sense. I painted the old shelves myself. I learned which wholesalers delivered on time and which ones promised more than they could supply. Once, a bride canceled a large order two days before her wedding, and I had to decide whether to keep the deposit under the contract or return part of it because her family had suffered an emergency. I made the decision without asking Daniel or my parents what they thought.
May you like
It was a small thing, but it felt enormous. For so long, every choice had been filtered through someone else's needs. My mother needed me agreeable. Brooke needed me useful. Chase needed me embarrassed. Even Daniel, with all his care, could have become another person whose approval defined me if I had allowed it. Instead, he celebrated the decisions I made for myself, including the ones he might have handled differently.
I began keeping a notebook in the shop drawer. On the first page I wrote: Things I am allowed to want. Underneath I listed steady work, a peaceful home, friendships without humiliation, and a love that never asks me to be smaller. I left the rest of the page blank. For the first time, the blank space looked like possibility rather than failure.
