Chapter 8 - Alora Was Part of the Plan
Thane could barely look at the photographs.
Alora did.
Every one.
“I want to know.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do.”
The surveillance began four months earlier.
Julian’s notes tracked her schedule.
Prenatal appointments.
Yoga classes.
Lunches.
Visits to her sister.
Security coverage.
One entry read:
Thursday appointment usually 11:30. House empty 11:05–13:10.
That was the window selected for the safe operation.
Alora touched her stomach.
“So they planned around me.”
“Yes.”
Another note:
A does not know inner code. C may need leverage if schedule changes.
Thane stared.
“Leverage.”
That word made him sick.
Corrine had not improvised everything.
Julian anticipated she might need to pressure Alora.
Perhaps not violence.
But coercion.
Thane wanted to call Corrine.
Denise refused.
“You are done confronting suspects personally.”
“She knew.”
“Then investigators will prove what she knew.”
Corrine’s lawyer requested another interview.
This time she admitted Julian told her Alora “might need encouragement” if she remained home.
“What did you understand that to mean?” prosecutors asked.
“That she should be made to give us access.”
“How?”
Corrine said nothing.
“Did Julian instruct you to use violence?”
“No.”
“Did he instruct you not to?”
“No.”
That distinction would matter legally.
Morally, it did not help Thane.
Sloan claimed Corrine escalated after Alora refused.
“She grabbed her first,” Sloan said. “I told Mom we should leave.”
“Did you leave?”
“No.”
“You continued breaking the safe.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sloan looked down.
“Because I wanted the documents.”
Again: responsibility divided, but not erased.
Alora listened to none of Sloan’s apologies.
She did not want them yet.
Instead she gave a formal statement.
She described Corrine’s threats.
The hair pulling.
The demand for the code.
Sloan’s declarations that the house would be theirs.
She also admitted something Thane had not known.
Corrine had confronted her before.
Not violently.
Privately.
Two months earlier at a family lunch.
“She told me I should sign a postnuptial agreement,” Alora said.
Thane stared.
“What?”
“She said the family needed protection from me.”
“You never told me.”
“I thought it was another Corrine insult.”
“What did you say?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“She said pregnancy made women emotional and I should think about my future.”
Thane’s anger rose again.
Alora looked at him.
“Don’t.”
He breathed.
“What else?”
“She asked whether you had changed your will.”
Thane went still.
He had.
Six months earlier.
After learning Alora was pregnant.
He created a marital trust for Alora and their child, funded largely from personal—not company—assets.
Julian knew because he coordinated the meeting with Malcolm.
Corrine apparently knew pieces.
“What does my new estate plan do to her?”
“Nothing. Her marital trust from Dad is separate.”
“Then why care?”
Alora understood.
“Because in the old plan, if you died without children, Sloan’s branch eventually received more.”
Thane closed his eyes.
The unborn child changed the long-term inheritance path.
Not immediate billions.
But future control.
Another motive.
Julian exploited that too.
The investigation into Hawthorne Crest intensified.
Gavin Roark’s attorneys claimed the side letter was a legitimate retention arrangement contingent on a lawful leadership transition.
Denise nearly laughed.
“Paying ten million when the CEO ‘ceases to exercise voting authority for any reason’ is going to be difficult to explain.”
But difficult was not impossible.
Roark insisted he never knew of forged documents, the break-in, or the incapacity plot.
Julian had allegedly told him Thane might voluntarily step aside because of health concerns.
Thane did not believe it.
Investigators searched emails.
Most were cautious.
Too cautious.
Julian and Roark frequently spoke by encrypted messaging.
The devices were missing.
Then Sloan’s phone produced something unexpected.
A photograph Julian had sent her accidentally weeks earlier.
A conference-room whiteboard.
At the top:
STERLING PATHWAYS
Below were columns.
VOLUNTARY SALE
BOARD REMOVAL
INCAPACITY
LIQUIDITY EVENT
Beside “INCAPACITY” were initials:
JM / GV / CR / MV
Julian Mercer.
Gavin Roark?
Corrine Sterling.
Malcolm Voss.
Roark’s initials were GR, not GV.
So who was GV?
Thane stared.
Then Denise said, “Dr. Pike’s legal name is Adrian Gavin Voss-Pike.”
Malcolm Voss’s nephew.
“GV,” Thane whispered.
The doctor.
The medical affidavit.
And suddenly the family-lawyer connection deepened.
May you like
Malcolm had not merely been blackmailed.
He had brought his own nephew into the conspiracy.
