Ten minutes later, he returned. The air in the room instantly grew heavy. The movie star brother noticed it first, his smile fading. “What is it? Is it the press? Did someone leak that we found her?”
“Worse,” the eldest brother said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. He looked directly at me, his expression a mix of fierce protectiveness and deep anxiety. “Our paternal grandfather just found out that Autumn is in the city.”
The other two brothers stiffened. My youngest brother slammed his fists onto the table. “How? We kept the police report completely classified! We used our own security!”
“The old man still has eyes everywhere,” the eldest brother replied coldly. “He knows everything. And he just issued an ultimatum.”
I looked between them, fear creeping back into my chest. “What does he want? I thought you said his family only cared about boys. Why does he care about me?”
The eldest brother walked over, placing a heavy, reassuring hand on my shoulder, but his next words made my blood run entirely cold.
“Our father’s will had a hidden clause that none of us knew about until tonight,” the eldest brother explained, his jaw tight. “Before our father died, he felt immense guilt for what he did to Mom. He left forty percent of the entire family conglomerate—the multi-billion-dollar estate—not to us, but to his first-born daughter. To you, Autumn. But there’s a catch.”
The movie star brother stood up, his face pale. “What catch?”
The eldest brother looked down at me, his eyes filled with a sudden, dreadful urgency. “The will states that if you do not claim the inheritance in person at the family estate by your twenty-fifth birthday, the entire fortune defaults to our toxic uncle—the man who orchestrated Mom’s banishment in the first place. And your twenty-fifth birthday is tomorrow.”
I gasped. “Tomorrow? But I don’t care about the money! I don’t want it!”
“It’s not just about the money, Autumn,” the eldest brother said grimly. “Our uncle knows that if you sign the papers, we gain total control of the company and can finally ruin him for what he did to our mother. He will do anything to stop you from reaching that estate tonight. My security team just reported that a fleet of unidentified black vehicles has just surrounded our building. The elevators have been remotely shut down, and the power in the lobby just went completely dead.”
Suddenly, the lights in the penthouse flickered and plunged into absolute darkness. The only illumination came from the distant skyline of the city outside the massive glass windows.
From the hallway outside the penthouse door, the heavy, echoing sound of footsteps and the distinct click-clack of weapons being readied shattered the silence.
