Chapter 5: The Archives of Oak Creek
The Oak Creek Courthouse smelled of floor wax, damp wool, and centuries of lost causes. The wooden benches in the records annex were scarred with initials carved by generations of litigants who had lost everything trying to keep what was theirs. Julian pushed open the heavy frosted-glass door of the municipal records vault, holding it for me and Brutus, who ducked his head to clear the brass latch with practiced ease.
"Clerk's office doesn't open for twenty minutes," Julian said, checking his gold watch as he unbuttoned his suit jacket. He looked different in the gray morning light filtering through the high iron-barred windows—less like the corporate shark who terrorized boardroom tables, and more like someone caught in a storm he had helped create. "We need the original incorporation filings from nineteen-ninety-four. That's where your grandfather legally bound the regional shipping hubs to family-only trusteeship. If Marcus filed a dissolution yesterday, it violates the original charter."
I walked over to the tall oak filing cabinets that lined the damp stone walls, running my fingers along the brass pull handles. Brutus padded softly beside me, his tail giving a single, heavy thud against a metal leg whenever someone walked past the outer corridor.
"My father kept duplicate copies of everything," I murmured, pulling open a heavy drawer labeled Moretti-Vance Holdings: Historical. "He said men like Julian and Marcus only look at the numbers on the top page because they think nobody remembers how the foundation was built."
Julian stepped up beside me, leaning over my shoulder as I sifted through yellowed linen sheets and tissue-thin carbon copies. His shoulder brushed against mine, warm and solid, sending a strange, sudden shirthrough the quiet room.
"Your father was right about a lot of things," Julian said quietly, his gaze dropping to the specific ledger sheet I had just pulled free from a rusted metal clip. His fingers closed over mine, steadying the paper as his dark eyes widened. "Look at the notary stamp on the bottom right corner. That's not Marcus's signature. That's my uncle's signature—the one who supposedly died in the plane crash ten years ago."
I looked up into Julian's face, seeing the exact moment the corporate armor finally shattered into pieces.
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"He didn't die in a crash, did he?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper in the echoing vault.
Julian didn't answer right away. He stared at the faded ink of his uncle's signature, his jaw working as he swallowed hard. Before he could speak, the heavy outer door of the annex clicked open, and the sharp sound of approaching footsteps echoed down the stone hallway.
