Chapter 8 - The Ghost Of The Past
The heavy leather ledger sat on the coffee table like a ticking bomb. Emma stared at the faded gold lettering on the spine—*Vance & Miller Logistics, 2018*—the exact year her father had suffered a fatal heart attack just weeks before the company was sold to Julian for pennies on the dollar. She hadn't seen this book since the day of the funeral, when Julian had promised her that all the old records had been destroyed in the warehouse fire to spare her the painful memories.
“Open it,” David urged, taking a deliberate step backward toward the exit, keeping his eyes locked on her. “Your husband didn't steal Apex Logistics from you, Emma. He bought it with money that wasn't his, provided by a silent partner who is currently standing outside in a car waiting for me to bring this book back.”
Emma didn't hesitate. She stepped forward, ignoring the water dripping from David’s coat, and flipped the heavy cover open. The pages smelled of aged paper and dried ink. Her fingers turned the brittle pages one by one until she reached the earmarked corner of page forty-two.
The text on the page was handwritten in her father’s precise, looping cursive, detailing a secret loan agreement taken out six months before his death. But the signature at the bottom wasn't her father’s alone. Co-signed beside it was a name she hadn't heard in a decade—Arthur Vance, Julian’s estranged, allegedly bankrupt uncle, who had supposedly died in a boating accident in Europe twenty years ago.
Emma looked up sharply, her eyes wide with the horrifying realization. “Arthur isn't dead.”
“Dead men don't collect dividends,” a deep voice drawled from the doorway behind David.
Emma spun around. Standing in the entryway, leaning casually against the doorframe, was an older man with silver hair combed straight back and sharp, cruel eyes that mirrored Julian’s. He wore a dark, expensive overcoat, and in his right hand, he held a silver-headed cane that tapped softly against the hardwood floor.
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“Hello, Emma,” Arthur Vance said smoothly, stepping into the light. “I’ve been waiting a very long time to meet the woman smart enough to finally break my nephew’s toy company.”
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