All Chapters of THE MAN THEY TRIED TO ERASE: Chapter 81
- Chapter 90
164 chapters
80
The morning broke cold and gray. Rain tapped rhythmically against the apartment windows, painting streaks down the glass like veins. Finn hadn’t slept. He sat at the kitchen counter, staring into the steam rising from his untouched coffee. Ruth slept fitfully in the next room, her murmured dreams broken by gasps.He scrolled through his phone again, reading Shawn’s message for what felt like the hundredth time. You think tomorrow will give you answers. It will give you choices… and only one will keep her alive. The words looped through his mind like a curse.By the time Ruth emerged from the bedroom—hair tousled, eyes red—Finn had already made up his mind.“I’m going,” he said quietly.She froze. “Finn—no. That’s what he wants.”“I know.” He looked up, gaze sharp. “But hiding won’t change a damn thing. He knows where to find us. And if I don’t go, he’ll make the first move.”Ruth crossed the room, gripping his shoulders. “Then we make the first move. You’re not walking into another tr
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The rain didn’t stop for hours. It fell in heavy sheets that blurred the city into a smear of lights and reflections. Finn stood by the window, staring at nothing, the name Eleanor echoing in his head like a distant bell. Audrey’s revelation kept replaying, every word more surreal than the last.He turned slowly to face her. “You’ve met her?”Audrey’s coat was still damp, her hair clinging to her temples. She looked exhausted, but her voice was steady. “Not met, exactly. I… ran into her while checking some of Ruth’s old holdings.”“Start from the beginning,” Finn said, his tone low, almost dangerous. “Everything.”Audrey exhaled, pacing the length of the living room. “After Ruth’s passing, there were discrepancies in her asset declarations. Funds that didn’t match up. At first, I thought it was fraud—until I noticed that one of the accounts was still active. Money was being transferred regularly to a small trust in Marseille, under the name E. Callahan.”Finn froze. “You’re saying Rut
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Audrey spun around, her breath catching in her throat. A young woman stood in the doorway, her presence so sudden it felt supernatural. She wore a pale gray coat, her dark hair falling in soft waves over her shoulders, her expression calm—too calm. Her eyes, sharp and knowing, locked onto Finn’s.Finn didn’t move. For the first time in a long while, he looked almost… humanly startled. His hands, usually steady, trembled just slightly. “Eleanor.”The girl smiled faintly, stepping closer. “So, you do know who I am.”Audrey instinctively took a step back, her pulse hammering. “How did you get in here?”Eleanor didn’t even glance at her. “The same way you did,” she said smoothly. “The difference is—he was expecting me.”Finn’s gaze darkened. “I wasn’t.”Eleanor tilted her head, studying him. “You’ve been looking for me. I thought it would be polite to save you the trouble.”Her tone carried no fear, no hesitation. Just quiet confidence—the kind that unnerved even the most powerful people.
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The night was unusually still over Sanbergh. The city lights shimmered below like an ocean of dying stars, and from the balcony of his penthouse, Finn stood with a glass of bourbon in his hand, his reflection fractured against the window. Behind him, the faint hum of the city felt miles away—distant, irrelevant.Everything he had built—every lie, every manipulation, every corpse—had led him here. The richest man in town, the most feared name whispered in business circles… and yet, it all felt paper-thin tonight.The door clicked open softly. Audrey’s heels echoed as she approached, her perfume drifting through the air before she spoke. “You didn’t show up to the meeting, Finn.”He didn’t turn around. “I didn’t feel like playing polite today.”Audrey sighed. “You’re losing focus. Shawn’s lawsuit isn’t going away, and the board’s getting restless. If you keep acting like—”“Like what?” Finn finally turned, eyes sharp as glass. “Like someone who refuses to be outplayed?”She flinched but
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The night after Shawn’s visit stretched endlessly, heavy with silence. Finn didn’t sleep. He sat in his office surrounded by dim lamplight, the photograph Shawn had left lying open on the desk like a wound that refused to close.Ruth’s smile in that picture—warm, unguarded, the kind he hadn’t seen in years—clawed at him. But it was the child that held his gaze. The girl had Ruth’s eyes, bright and defiant, and something else too—something unsettlingly familiar.He leaned back, exhaling smoke from the cigarette between his fingers. “You had another secret, didn’t you, Ruth?” he murmured. “And now your ghost won’t stay buried.”The door opened softly. Audrey stepped in wearing a silk robe, her hair loose, face drawn with worry. “You’ve been in here all night.”Finn didn’t look up. “I’ve been busy.”“You’re staring
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The city was still wrapped in dawn’s pale gray when Finn returned to his penthouse. The skyline looked sterile, silent—like the world was holding its breath. Inside, the air felt heavy with tension. Audrey was waiting by the window, barefoot, a cup of coffee trembling in her hands.“Where the hell have you been?” she demanded, voice cracking between worry and anger. “It’s six in the morning, Finn.”He ignored the question and placed a small folder on the counter. His knuckles were still scraped from punching the table at the greenhouse. “Wake up the legal team. I want every document on Ruth Callahan’s estate reviewed—again. Bank transactions, real estate holdings, hospital records, everything from the last twenty-five years.”“Finn—”“Now,” he snapped.Audrey set the cup down, her calm finally breaking. “No. Not until you tell me what’s going on. You disappear in the middle of the night and come back looking like you’ve seen a ghost.”He stared at her, silent for a long moment. Then,
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The storm had settled over the city by morning—gray clouds pressing down like a lid, and rain carving silent lines down the glass walls of the Callahan penthouse. Finn hadn’t slept. The words Clara had left him with circled endlessly in his mind: Careful’s not really a family trait, is it?He stood at the window, tie loose, the last of his whiskey untouched on the table beside him. Audrey entered quietly, her heels clicking against the marble. “You didn’t come to bed,” she said softly.He didn’t look at her. “I couldn’t.”Audrey crossed her arms, trying to sound casual, though her tone was sharp. “You found her, didn’t you? Ruth’s so-called daughter.”Finn’s eyes stayed on the skyline. “Not so-called. She’s real.”Audrey froze. “You confirmed it?”He turned then, gaze dark. “I looked into her background. Ruth set up a private trust years ago, under a shell company. Clara Wynn is the beneficiary. She’s been receiving quarterly payments since she turned eighteen.”Audrey swallowed hard.
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The rain hadn’t stopped. It fell heavier now, a constant percussion against the black asphalt as Finn’s car sliced through the night. Streetlights flickered over the windshield in rhythmic bursts—gold, silver, gold—like the heartbeat of a city that refused to sleep.Audrey drove, silent and tense. She didn’t dare look at him through the rearview mirror. Finn sat in the back seat, one hand pressed to his temple, the other gripping Ruth’s crumpled letter.“Are you sure about this?” Audrey finally asked. “Confronting Shawn like this—it’s not strategy, it’s rage.”“Sometimes rage gets results,” Finn muttered.She shook her head. “Or gets you killed.”He ignored that, eyes fixed on the rain. “He was there, Audrey. The night Ruth died. All this time, I thought she overdosed. But he was with her. He knew.”Audrey’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “What if the video was manipulated? You know he’s capable of that.”“I’ll decide that when I see him.”They arrived at the Penton Ware
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The rain had turned into a downpour by the time Finn reached the edge of the district. Water cascaded off his coat in sheets, his breath sharp and heavy as he moved through the alleys. Every streetlight felt like a spotlight, every sound like pursuit. Sirens still echoed in the distance, bouncing between metal walls and wet concrete.He had to think. Fast.The police weren’t after Shawn. They were after him.Audrey’s voice rang in his head—“If you go there tonight, you’re walking into a trap.”She’d been right.Finn slipped behind a row of shuttered warehouses and crouched beside a dumpster. The adrenaline was so thick in his veins it almost numbed the cold. He reached into his coat and pulled out his phone. No signal. The storm had killed the network.Perfect.He exhaled slowly and looked up.There—across the street—a pair of headlights flared. For one frozen second, his muscles tensed, ready to run. But then the car’s horn honked twice, sharp and familiar.Audrey.He dashed across t
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The rain had calmed into a slow, cold drizzle by the time Finn’s breath evened again. The silence between him and Clara stretched, taut and heavy, broken only by the faint dripping from the leaking roof above.He couldn’t look away from the photograph. Ruth—glowing, younger, standing between two men. Shawn on her left, smug as always. And on her right—William Hargrove. Finn’s father. The same man who’d vanished when Finn was fifteen, leaving only a rumor and a trail of debts behind.Finn’s voice was quiet, almost disbelieving. “That’s not possible. My father died twenty years ago.”Clara folded her arms, watching him carefully. “No. He disappeared. And Ruth helped him do it.”He looked up sharply. “What are you talking about?”“She covered his tracks,” Clara said, her tone firm, though her eyes were uneasy. “He was facing embezzlement charges—Callahan’s early expansion years. He siphoned millions through dummy companies. Ruth used her influence to bury it, to make it disappear. In exc