He hung up and looked out the kitchen window, the same one Jonah had looked through.
He thought of that boy standing in the dark, watching his daughter being poisoned by the woman who was supposed to be her mother.
The war had started, and Chief Jeremiah Williams was ready to burn everything down to save his child.
The silence in the Banana Island mansion was no longer a symbol of peace. It was the suffocating quiet of a ticking time bomb.
Chief Jeremiah Williams paced the length of his mahogany-paneled study, the shadows of the evening creeping across the walls. He had immediately summoned his most trusted staff. Mrs. Roa, the stern, fiercely loyal head housekeeper who had been with his family since Maya was born, was stationed directly outside the little girl’s bedroom door. Her instructions were absolute: no one, especially not Madam Victoria, was to cross that threshold.
Downstairs, the atmosphere was thick with unspoken tension.
Jerry’s encrypted phone buzzed, vibrating violently against the glass of his mahogany desk.
It was Barrister Johnson, his ruthless estate lawyer and oldest confidant.
“Jerry,” Barrister Johnson’s voice crackled through the speaker, crisp and strictly professional. “I got your emergency message. I am reviewing the trust fund documents right now. If what you suspect is true, the default clause in the event of Maya’s passing would immediately transfer seventy percent of your liquid assets and the overseas real estate portfolio directly to Victoria’s name. It is an ironclad clause we drafted when you two married. But Jerry, we need proof. Accusing her without it will lead to a media circus that could tank the company’s stock by morning.”
“I am getting the proof, Johnson,” Jerry replied, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. “Just prepare the divorce papers and prepare a dossier for the Inspector General of Police. I want her locked away where the sun will never touch her skin.”
