Chapter 1 - The Door Over the Pacific
The helicopter banked north over the California coast when Richard unlatched Amelia’s harness.
There was no warning. One second his hand rested on the buckle at her waist; the next, the metal tongue sprang free.
The side door had been removed for what Richard had called an aerial inspection of Carrington Coastal’s property near Big Sur. Below Amelia, the Pacific looked flat and metallic, impossibly far away.
Richard shoved her.
Her shoulder struck the door frame. Wind ripped through her hair as half her body went outside.
Then the secondary tether beneath her ivory coat snapped tight.
Richard’s face changed.
Amelia gripped the overhead rail, pulled herself inside, and saw the calculation disappear from his eyes.
“By tonight,” he said through the engine noise, “it’s mine.”
She looked at him.
Not frightened now.
Certain.
“You signed it yesterday.”
From inside her coat, Amelia pulled a deep-burgundy envelope and dropped it onto his lap.
Richard stared at the black wax seal used by Carrington Family Office.
His own signature showed through a torn corner.
“What the hell is this?”
Amelia re-clipped her harness.
“The authority you kept asking me for.”
Richard tore open the envelope.
The pilot, Mark Ellis, kept the aircraft steady, but Amelia saw his eyes flick toward her in the mirror.
Richard turned pages rapidly.
Then stopped.
His skin lost its color.
“What did you make me sign?”
“I didn’t make you sign anything.”
He looked up.
Amelia placed one hand over the curve of her six-month pregnancy.
“You inherited exactly what I wanted.”
Mark banked the helicopter inland toward Monterey Regional Airport.
Richard looked down again at the page.
This time, Amelia saw what frightened him.
Not the line granting him temporary control.
May you like
The paragraph directly beneath it.
The one requiring him to certify every related-party transaction he had authorized during the previous eighteen months.
