Chapter 6 - Victoria Finally Tells One Truth
By morning, Victoria demanded to leave.
Gabriel refused.
Not physically.
Legally.
Her attorney informed her that police wanted another statement about Sarah’s injury and Ethan’s escape.
Victoria paced the guest suite like an animal trapped behind glass.
Sarah watched through the security monitor in Maya’s temporary command room.
“She’s scared,” Sarah said.
Gabriel stood beside her.
“Of us?”
Sarah shook her head.
“No.”
Victoria kept checking her phone.
Every thirty seconds.
“She’s waiting for someone.”
At 8:17 a.m., the call came.
Victoria answered on speaker for only a second before lowering the volume.
But Maya captured the incoming number.
Daniel Langley.
Her father.
The call lasted eleven seconds.
Victoria ended it, then sat perfectly still.
Five minutes later, she asked to speak with Gabriel alone.
He refused that too.
“If you speak, Sarah stays.”
Victoria’s eyes flashed.
“She’s staff.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “She’s the reason I know anything.”
Sarah felt something shift inside her.
Victoria noticed.
And hated it.
They met in the library.
Victoria looked smaller without the confidence she wore at dinner.
“I did hurt her hand,” she said.
Sarah’s chest tightened.
Gabriel’s jaw flexed.
Victoria raised a shaking hand.
“But not for the reason you think.”
“Then explain it.”
Victoria looked at Sarah.
“I saw her photographing the folder.”
“Yes.”
“I panicked.”
“Why?”
“Because my father told me if anyone saw those papers, he would destroy me.”
Gabriel stared at her.
“Daniel?”
Victoria nodded.
Sarah watched tears gather in her eyes.
They looked real.
That did not make Victoria innocent.
But it made the situation more complicated.
“My father has controlled every account I’ve had since I was eighteen,” Victoria said. “Every trust. Every property. Every contract. He told me the Sterling marriage was the only way to secure my future.”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“Our engagement.”
Victoria gave a bitter smile.
“You thought it was romantic?”
He flinched.
She looked away.
“I cared about you. Maybe I still do. But my father arranged the introduction because he wanted access.”
“To what?”
“The Sterling Estate Trust.”
Sarah remembered the sheet beneath the transfer form.
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.
“What amendment?”
Victoria swallowed.
“The one that gives a spouse temporary voting control if you become medically incapacitated.”
Silence.
Sarah felt the hairs rise on her arms.
Gabriel said, “We’re not married.”
“Not yet.”
The meaning landed heavily.
Victoria continued.
“My father said after the wedding, he could make sure you signed everything.”
“Make sure?”
Victoria closed her eyes.
“He said accidents happen to men who work too hard.”
Gabriel stepped back.
Sarah stared at her.
Victoria had hurt Sarah.
She had lied.
She had helped Ethan escape.
But for the first time, she seemed afraid of the same thing they were.
Daniel Langley.
Gabriel’s voice dropped.
“Did your father have anything to do with my mother’s death?”
Victoria looked at him.
And the answer in her face came before the words.
“I don’t know.”
Gabriel’s shoulders tightened.
“But three years ago,” Victoria whispered, “I found one of his old files.”
“What file?”
“A settlement.”
May you like
She looked sick.
“Paid to the mechanic who serviced Eleanor’s car the week she died.”
