Chapter 5 - THE BEAUMONT THEATER The Beaumont Theater had been closed for twelve years.
But its red sign still glowed over the alley.
Nathan entered alone.
Grace sat beneath a single stage light.
Lily was in her arms.
Caleb Rourke stepped from the darkness.
Nathan recognized him immediately.
His father's former head of security.
“You turned off my kitchen cameras.”
“Your father's cameras.”
“My father is dead.”
“Some systems outlive the men who build them.”
Rourke demanded the files.
Nathan refused.
Instead, he asked the question that mattered.
“Who ordered this?”
“Your father.”
Grace shook her head.
“Your father didn't order Victoria to hit me.”
Rourke's silence was enough.
Nathan pressed harder.
“What was Lily supposed to become?”
Rourke answered:
“Contained.”
Grace's eyes filled with rage.
“That's what they called it.”
A containment program.
A secret trust.
A new identity.
A life designed to keep Lily outside the Cole family until the Vale merger became permanent.
Nathan stared at his daughter.
“She was never supposed to know who I was.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Rourke looked at him.
“Because once she was legally recognized, she changed the succession.”
Police stormed the theater.
Rourke was arrested.
But before he was taken away, he smiled.
“You're looking at the wrong enemy.”
Then Nathan received a call from Cole Industrial.
The board had scheduled an emergency meeting.
Victoria had requested it.
May you like
She wanted Nathan removed.
The battle was moving from the family to the company.
