Chapter 25 - The daughter's retribution
Garrett pulled open the door and shoved Maya and Margaret into the backseat before climbing into the front. Evelyn slammed the accelerator, the tires spinning on wet asphalt before catching traction and rocketing the sedan out of the alley just as two black SUVs turned into the street behind them.
"Why are you helping us?" Garrett demanded, watching Evelyn's hands grip the steering wheel with white knuckles. "Your father tried to erase Maya’s life."
"My father was a coward who spent thirty years jumping at Arthur Weston’s command," Evelyn replied through clenched teeth, weaving through evening traffic with reckless precision. "He thought Arthur would protect him. Instead, Arthur put C4 under his transport van the second Julian became a liability."
Margaret leaned forward, her voice raw. "Julian was murdered?"
"Arthur doesn't leave loose ends, Mrs. Weston," Evelyn said, glancing into the rearview mirror at Maya. "He paid my tuition, set up my clinic, and held my father's fraud over our heads like a guillotine. But Julian left me an insurance policy. A personal safety deposit key that matches the code in your cylinder."
Maya pulled the yellowed parchment from Garrett’s coat pocket. "Where does this key lead?"
"To the private library beneath the ancestral manor in Newport," Evelyn answered. "The original estate where your parents lived before your father died. That house has been boarded up for twenty years, guarded by Arthur’s private security firm."
"Why Newport?" Maya asked.
"Because the physical safe isn't a bank," Garrett realized, his voice dropping an octave. "It's Father’s study. The one room Arthur could never legally demolish without Margaret's signature as the surviving widow."
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Evelyn turned sharply onto the interstate highway, leaving the flashing red lights of the city skyline behind. "We have less than two hours before Arthur's men realize I picked you up. If we don't breach that study first, Arthur will burn the manor to the ground and blame the fire on an electrical short."
👉 In the backseat, Margaret reached into her collar and pulled out a tiny brass key she had kept hidden inside her wedding band for twenty-four years.
