Chapter 12 - The Ghost of Vanessa Bellamy
The lockbox opened with a muted snap of precision gears. Inside lay three items: a cassette tape labeled *August 14, 1984*, a black leather ledger bearing the Bellamy crest, and a full-color surveillance photograph taken only two weeks ago outside the Mercer Port Authority in Seattle.
In the photograph stood a young woman in her late twenties. She wore a tailored ivory trench coat, her dark auburn hair pulled back into a severe chignon, her icy hazel eyes fixed directly on the Mercer boardroom window. She looked terrifyingly identical to Vanessa Bellamy.
"Who is she?" Mia whispered, leaning over Daniel’s shoulder, her knuckles turning white against his chair.
"Victoria Bellamy," Daniel said, the breath catching in his throat. "Vanessa was three months pregnant when I threw the ring in her face and ejected her family from the estate. She swore to Charles that she would erase any Mercer bloodline from the child’s birth certificate."
"She didn't erase it," Natalie said, her voice taut as she flipped through the pages of the black ledger. "Look at this ledger, Dad. These aren't old Bellamy debts. These are modern transactions. Someone has been buying up secondary mortgage tranches of our logistics terminals through an offshore shell company registered in Grand Cayman—*Nemesis Holdings*."
Before Daniel could speak, the landline on his mahogany desk began to ring. It was a private line—unlisted, reserved exclusively for the port master and the family trust’s chief banker.
Daniel lifted the receiver. "Mercer."
"Happy birthday, Daniel," purred a voice that was both unfamiliar and horribly reminiscent of the past. It was younger than Vanessa’s, yet carried the exact same predatory cadence. "Did Mother’s little greeting reach you in time?"
"Victoria," Daniel said, keeping his tone like iron.
"I see Eleanor left behind her usual paranoid bedtime stories," Victoria replied with a cold laugh. "Mother always said your family suffered from a tragic defect: you believed virtue was collateral. Tomorrow morning at nine, my firm files an injunction freezing the deep-water berth at the Mercer terminal. You think the wedding ended forty years ago, old man? It didn't. It just took a generation for us to collect the dowry."
May you like
The line went dead.
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