Chapter 9 - The Funeral He Prepared Too SoonVictor scheduled a memorial before Elena had been declared dead.
He claimed the family needed closure.
In reality, the event served three purposes.
It strengthened the public belief that Elena was gone.
It pressured the board to accept his authority.
And it placed him at the center of the Mercer legacy before anyone could challenge him.
The memorial was arranged at the company’s glass headquarters in Seattle.
A large photograph of Elena stood beneath white flowers.
Beside it was a smaller framed image representing the unborn baby.
Victor had chosen no name.
Elena watched the preparations through a secure hospital feed.
Hope slept beside her inside a clear bassinet, breathing without assistance now.
The sight of the smaller frame made Elena’s hands shake.
Victor had created a symbol for a child he tried to kill.
Adrian entered the room.
“We can stop the memorial.”
“No.”
“You do not need to watch.”
“I need to understand what he believes he owns.”
Employees gathered.
Board members arrived.
Richard Vale stood near the front.
Insurance representatives attended privately.
Serena was absent.
Victor explained that grief made her unable to appear.
The truth was that she had entered protective custody.
She had signed a cooperation agreement and surrendered every message connected to the cliff, policy, and trust manipulation.
Victor did not know.
He stepped onto the stage.
His voice broke in carefully measured places.
“Elena believed technology should save lives.”
From her hospital bed, Elena looked toward the bracelet on the table.
He continued.
“She believed family was the foundation of everything.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
Victor spoke about their unborn child.
He described dreams they had shared.
A nursery.
A name.
A future.
Almost none of it was true.
He had avoided discussing baby names for months.
He called medical appointments scheduling conflicts.
He treated the pregnancy as an obstacle to trust control.
Yet the audience cried.
Elena understood why.
They were not foolish.
They were responding to a performance built from familiar symbols.
Grieving husband.
Lost mother.
Unborn child.
Tragic storm.
Truth was harder because it required accepting that cruelty could stand beneath flowers and speak gently.
Victor ended the memorial by announcing the creation of the Elena Mercer Innovation Fund.
The fund would receive donations and company assets.
Its administrator was Monarch Civic Trust, an entity controlled by Richard Vale.
Another path for money.
Evelyn’s equivalent in Adrian’s security team, investigator Mara Quinn, documented every transaction.
The memorial was not only theater.
It was an active crime.
After the speech, Victor entered Elena’s former executive office.
He closed the door and called Meridian’s chief negotiator.
“The board is emotionally ready,” he said. “We complete the sale within forty-eight hours.”
The call was recorded through Mercer’s internal emergency protocol.
Then Victor opened Elena’s desk drawer.
Inside, Adrian’s team had left one object intentionally.
A duplicate of Elena’s silver bracelet.
Victor picked it up.
The blue indicator pulsed once.
He dropped it.
For the first time, his face showed uncontrolled fear.
He called Richard.
“There was a tracker.”
Richard asked whether it transmitted.
Victor looked toward the office ceiling, suddenly suspicious of every device.
“I don’t know.”
He did not know Elena had survived.
But he knew the cliff might have recorded him.
The memorial ended with employees still grieving outside.
Inside the office, Victor began destroying documents.
The emergency system copied each file before deletion.
At the hospital, Elena watched his panic.
Adrian asked quietly, “Ready?”
Elena looked at Hope.
Then at the screen showing her husband tearing through the office of a woman he believed dead.
“Yes.”
Her return would not happen in anger.
It would happen at the Meridian signing, where every accomplice expected to receive something.
May you like
Victor had gathered them for her.
👉 Victor’s terror began with a blinking bracelet, but nothing prepared him for the woman who would enter the room during his billion-dollar victory.
