Chapter 10: The Last Card
Vivienne called Charlotte directly on a Wednesday morning.
Charlotte almost didn't answer.
Then she did.
"I know you found the file," Vivienne said.
No greeting.
No pretense.
Charlotte said nothing.
"I know about Iris," Vivienne continued.
"I've known for years.
My aunt told me before she d*ed.
It was part of the arrangement — your mother's cooperation, in exchange for our silence about the girl."
Charlotte's hand tightened on the phone.
"Where is she?" Charlotte asked.
"Safe.
As far as I know." A pause.
"I'm not a monster, Charlotte.
I never intended to use her.
But you need to understand what you're dealing with.
My aunt made certain arrangements before she d*ed.
Arrangements that ensured Iris's location would only remain private as long as the Holt family's interests were protected."
"You're threatening a twenty-two-year-old woman who has nothing to do with any of this."
"I'm explaining the situation as it exists," Vivienne said.
"I didn't create it.
I inherited it, the same way you inherited yours."
"That's not the same thing."
"Isn't it?" Vivienne's voice was even.
Careful.
"I was raised to protect my family's position.
You were raised to inherit an empire.
Neither of us chose our starting point."
"The difference," Charlotte said, "is what we do with it."
A silence.
"What do you want, Vivienne?"
"The same thing I offered you at dinner.
Forty percent.
Three properties.
The legal challenge dropped.
Everyone walks away."
"And Iris?"
"Iris stays where she is.
Safe.
Undisturbed.
Her trust releases in three years as your mother intended." A pause.
"No one needs to know she exists.
That's the cleanest outcome for everyone, including her."
Charlotte looked out the window.
Fourteen floors below, the city.
"I'll call you back," she said.
"Charlotte—"
She ended the call.
She sat for a moment.
Then she called Gerald.
"I need you in my office," she said.
"Now."
Gerald arrived in four minutes.
She told him everything.
He sat down heavily.
"She's bluffing," he said.
"About controlling Iris's location.
Rosalind Holt is d*ad.
Whatever arrangement she made — it would require someone actively maintaining it.
A person.
An institution.
A payment."
"Can we find it?"
"If there's a payment trail, yes.
It would take time."
"How much time?"
"Days.
Maybe less if we know where to look." He thought for a moment.
"The facility in Vermont transferred Iris to a private arrangement.
Your mother made that arrangement.
Which means the payment came from your mother's personal account."
"Which I now have access to," Charlotte said.
Gerald looked at her.
"Yes."
"Pull every outgoing transfer from that account for the past nine years," Charlotte said.
"Any recurring payment.
Any institution.
Any individual." She stood up.
"And Gerald — when we find where Iris is, I want to be the one to go there.
Not a lawyer.
Not an investigator.
Me."
"Understood."
He was almost at the door when Charlotte spoke again.
"She said she's not a monster," Charlotte said.
"Do you believe her?"
Gerald paused.
He considered the question seriously, the way he considered everything.
"I think she believes it about herself," he said.
"That's not the same as it being true."
He left.
Charlotte picked up her phone and looked at Vivienne's number on the screen.
Then she opened a different contact.
The journalist she had spoken to twice before.
The one with the courier package still waiting.
She typed a message: *Not yet.
But soon.
I'll tell you when.*
She set the phone down.
Somewhere in this city, or the next one, or somewhere she hadn't thought to look yet — a twenty-two-year-old woman named Iris was living a life she didn't know was about to change.
Charlotte intended to be the one to tell her.
On her own terms.
May you like
In her own time.
And not a moment before she had everything she needed to protect her.
