Chapter 6 - The Chicago Gambit
By dawn, they were crossing the state lines, hiding in the back of Marcus's truck beneath a pile of moving blankets.
Marcus had driven them to a small, abandoned motel in upstate New York.
Inside the dingy room, Clara finally had a chance to clean Leo’s soot-stained face and examine his legs.
"We have to go to Chicago," Leo said suddenly, sitting on the edge of the cheap mattress.
"Chicago is where your grandfather's corporate headquarters is," Clara replied, shaking her head. "That’s walking right into the lion’s den."
"That's exactly why we have to go," Leo insisted, his eyes displaying a fierce intelligence that mirrored his late father's.
"Tomorrow morning, Grandfather is hosting the annual shareholder's meeting to announce the transfer of my inheritance back to the company."
Clara looked at Arthur's journal sitting on the motel nightstand.
The journal contained the offshore account numbers that proved Richard and Eleanor had stolen the money.
"If we mail the journal to the police, Eleanor will just bribe them to destroy it," Marcus pointed out, leaning against the doorframe.
"He's right," Clara said, a dangerous plan forming in her mind.
"We don't go to the police. We go to the media, and we do it live in front of the entire board of directors."
They spent the next twelve hours driving relentlessly toward Illinois.
Clara used Marcus's burner phone to contact a fierce, independent investigative journalist she remembered Arthur once trusting.
She promised the journalist the scoop of the century, provided she could get them into the Sterling Corporation headquarters.
As the Chicago skyline finally appeared on the horizon, Clara looked at Leo.
He was no longer the frightened, forgotten boy sitting at the end of a long banquet table.
He held his father’s journal tightly to his chest, ready to reclaim his life.
"Are you ready for this?" Clara asked him.
May you like
"I've been ready since I was five years old," Leo replied coldly.
They were about to burn Eleanor's empire to the ground.
