Chapter 7 - Employee Seventeen
The old employee ledger was brought from the mansion archive.
Employee Number 17 belonged to Maria Reed.
Jacob’s mother.
Margaret stared at the name as if the dead woman had entered the foyer herself.
Maria had not accepted the family’s money when she left.
Instead, Ethan’s father transferred one percent of Mercer Holdings into an employee trust in her name.
A symbolic share, the family believed.
Meaningless.
Until Jacob’s misconduct clause gave his child fifty percent.
Maria’s one percent now determined control.
The trust’s successor was not Jacob.
It was the person who had supported Maria during the pregnancy and protected her employment records after she left.
Leah read the name.
Ruth Alvarez.
The Mercer family’s retired housekeeper.
A woman Margaret had dismissed twenty years earlier for “excessive familiarity with family affairs.”
Ruth lived in a small apartment in Bridgeport.
Margaret looked almost relieved.
“She signed a confidentiality agreement.”
The attorney shook his head.
“She signed an employment separation.”
“The share remained hers.”
Ethan instructed the household manager to call Ruth.
Margaret objected.
“She is an eighty-year-old former servant. She cannot decide the future of a corporation.”
Leah looked at her.
“You trusted servants to raise your children, clean your rooms and hide your husband’s secrets.”
A pause.
“But not to vote.”
Margaret had no answer.
The call connected.
Ruth’s elderly voice filled the foyer.
“I wondered how long it would take before one of you said Maria’s name aloud.”
Ethan stepped closer.
“Mrs. Alvarez, we need your vote.”
“No.”
May you like
Silence.
“You need to hear what happened to Jacob.”
