Chapter 7
The afternoon sun was hidden behind thick winter clouds. Cassandra sat in the study, the glow of the monitor illuminating her face. The Excel spreadsheet Ghost had sent was a masterpiece of forensic accounting. It was the smoking gun.
Her personal phone-the burner she had hidden-buzzed.
She looked at the caller ID. Gannon Benson. Her stepfather.
Her stomach tightened. The man who had smiled at her mother's funeral while holding Jeanna's hand. The man who had called her "useless" for a decade.
She answered. She didn't speak.
"Cassandra!" Gannon's voice boomed, distorted by rage. "What the hell have you done? The news is calling me! They say we abused you! You ungrateful little brat!"
"Hello, father," Cassandra said, her voice eerily calm.
"Don't you 'father' me! You get your ass back to the Manor right now and apologize to your sister! You tell the press you had a mental breakdown! Or so help me God, I will have you committed!"
"I'll come home," Cassandra said.
Gannon paused, surprised by the capitulation. "Good. Come alone."
"I'm coming to collect my things," she said. "And to say goodbye."
She hung up and blocked the number.
She pressed the intercom. "Viper. Prepare the car. We're going to Long Island."
"Boss said no leaving," Viper's voice came back instantly.
Before she could argue, the study door opened.
Kade stood there. He looked tired. He hadn't slept. He was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, rumpled now.
"Let her go," Kade said to Viper, who was standing in the hallway behind him.
Cassandra looked at Kade. "You're letting me out?"
Kade walked into the room. He stopped at the desk, leaning his knuckles on the wood. "You want to go to the Manor? Fine. But you take my team. I'm not having my wife kidnapped by those vultures again. Consider it asset protection."
"Thank you," she said, genuinely.
Kade looked away, avoiding her eyes. "Don't read into it."
"Right," she said softly.
She went upstairs and changed. She put on a white suit-sharp, tailored, immaculate. It was the color of mourning in some cultures, the color of purity in others. Today, it was the color of a clean slate. She applied red lipstick. War paint.
Viper helped her transfer from the house wheelchair to the portable one stored in the trunk of the SUV.
"We're riding heavy today, Mrs. Mullen," Viper said, tapping the assault rifle resting between the front seats.
Cassandra climbed in.
The drive to Long Island was silent. Cassandra watched the trees whiz by, skeletal and black against the snow. She remembered the last time she made this drive-in a hearse, following her mother's casket.
They arrived at the Benson Manor gates. The iron gates were closed.
The intercom crackled. "Mr. Benson says Cassandra walks in. No cars."
It was a power play. Make her crawl up the long, snowy driveway like a penitent pilgrim.
Viper looked at Cassandra in the rearview mirror. "Ram it?"
Cassandra rolled down the window. The cold air bit her face.
"Tell them," she said to the guard house, "that if the gate isn't open in five seconds, Kade Mullen will buy the security firm you work for and fire every single one of you without severance."
The gate began to open immediately.
"Drive," she commanded.
The convoy roared up the driveway. They didn't stop at the designated parking spots. Viper drove the lead SUV straight over the pristine tulip beds Gannon prized so highly, churning the bulbs into mud and snow, and pulled up right to the front steps.
Viper came around and unfolded the wheelchair. He helped Cassandra into it.
"I'm home," she whispered.
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