CHAPTER 10 The Founder Returns
Charles demanded that Claire come alone to the original Ashford Hotel, a building closed after a fire twenty years earlier.
Adrian insisted on following her.
Claire refused.
“Your father has Noah.”
“He is Noah’s father too.”
“That does not make him family.”
Claire entered the abandoned hotel shortly before midnight.
Emergency lamps guided her through the ruined lobby.
Charles waited in the old dining hall.
He appeared thinner than his official portraits but carried the same commanding posture.
Noah ran toward Claire.
Charles stopped him with one raised hand.
“Not yet.”
Victoria sat nearby, no longer restrained. Celeste stood beside her.
Claire realized the scene on the security monitor had been staged.
“You were all working together.”
Victoria looked ashamed.
“Not all of us.”
Charles explained that he had faked his death after discovering several board members planned to remove him. He continued controlling Ashford Crown through hidden companies while Daniel served as the public successor.
Noah had been born through a private arrangement involving a surrogate. Charles intended to raise him as the future owner of the empire.
Daniel found the child first.
He arranged the hospital exchange and raised Noah as his own son.
“You let me believe he was mine,” Claire said.
“I gave you a child,” Charles replied. “Daniel gave you a lie.”
“Daniel loved him.”
“Daniel stole him.”
Claire looked at Celeste.
“And you?”
Celeste’s expression hardened.
“Charles promised to reveal what happened to our mother.”
“You took Noah for an answer?”
“I protected him from the people who wanted the Ashford bloodline erased.”
Victoria stood.
“This ends tonight, Charles.”
He laughed.
“You had decades to stop me.”
Victoria turned toward Claire.
“The ownership transfer Daniel arranged was not only about the company. The trust contains a second clause.”
Claire had never seen it.
If Charles Ashford were proven alive, all Ashford assets would be transferred to Noah when he reached adulthood.
Until then, Claire remained trustee.
Charles needed Claire removed legally—or discredited publicly—to control his son’s inheritance.
Claire held out her hand.
“Noah, come to me.”
The boy moved.
Charles reached inside his coat.
A gunshot echoed through the dining hall.
The emergency lamps went dark.
Claire fell to the floor and pulled Noah beneath a table.
When the lights returned, Charles was gone.
Victoria lay injured but conscious.
Celeste had vanished as well.
On the wall behind them, someone had written a message in red paint:
DANIEL WAS HERE FIRST.
Noah crawled from Claire’s arms.
He pointed toward a balcony above the dining hall.
A man stood there wearing Daniel’s coat.
May you like
For one second, Claire saw her husband’s face.
Then the man stepped backward into the darkness.
