THE HEIR'S REVENGE

chapter 80

The journalist's name was Sandra Wealth.

I had not known her name before Henry mentioned it but Henry had given me a full summary by the time the meeting was arranged. Sandra Wealth was forty three years old and she had been writing for seventeen years.

She worked for a publication called The Crestwood Review which was not a tabloid or a gossip platform. It was the kind of serious publication that did long careful pieces about complicated subjects and took its time getting them right.

She had won two awards for a piece she wrote about a woman who spent fifteen years in prison for a crime she did not commit. The piece had been part of what eventually got that woman's conviction overturned.

She wrote about the truth. That was what she did. She found it and she told it and she did not dress it up or tear it down. She just put it on the page exactly as it was.

She didn't care about anyone's sentiment. I guess that was the reason Victoria had chosen her. The plan was to meet her first even before Victoria could get to her. It was truly interesting to see things play out.

I could only imagine the face Victoria would give me when she finally found out that we were ahead of her.

The meeting was arranged for two o'clock the next afternoon at the Blackwell Corporation offices. I didn't want us to go to any cafe, or even any neutral location. I wanted us to be at my building because I didn't want any controversy.

I spent the entire morning preparing. Not just thinking about how to dress but also preparing my mind. I had decided that I was going to talk to Lily but honestly I don't know how to go about it.

I didn't want to walk into that room with any script, I wanted to walk in prepared. I wanted to say the truth and say it in the simplest way I could.

Henry sat with me for part of the morning. He did not say much. He brought tea and looked over the documents we were planning to share with Sandra and occasionally made a small mark on his own notepad that indicated something needed adjusting.

At one point he looked up.

"Are you nervous?" he asked.

I thought about it honestly. Henry must have been concerned to ask so I wanted to answer honestly.

"No," I said. "I was nervous before the board meetings." I paused. "This feels different. This feels like something I want to do rather than something I have to do."

Henry nodded slowly. "That is how telling the truth usually feels," he said and I nodded agreeing. There was nothing much to say after all.

That afternoon after getting some work done in the morning, I and Henry decided we should leave at one so we wouldn't keep Sandra waiting.

I didn't know why but a part of me felt like she was doing us a favour so we had to respect her time and not keep her waiting.

Sandra Wealth arrived at five minutes to two.

Patricia met her in the lobby and brought her up. I was already in the meeting room when they came in.

She wasn't very tall, she had natural hair and reading glasses that she pushed up so many times. She looked very strict with no smile on her face when she came up.

She shook my hand firmly.

"Mr Blackwell," she said.

"Ethan," I said. "Please sit down." I pointed at the seat.

She sat across from me. Patricia sat to my left. Henry was near the door, waiting and listening. We all waited and for some time, it felt like there was this awkward silence in our mist.

Sandra first looked round the room like she was observing the place but I didn't think that was it. She was probably looking around for her own safety and making sure she wasn't being recorded.

"I appreciate you reaching out," she said. "I will be honest with you. I received a communication yesterday that I believe you are aware of."

"Margaret Vane?” I asked, trying to hide my surprise.

It seemed like Victoria was once again a step ahead of me.

She did not look surprised that I knew. "Yes. I have not read the document she offered me. I received it but I put it aside when your legal team contacted me yesterday." She looked at me directly. "I want to hear from you first."

"Why?" I asked. It seemed like something Victoria made her say. “Why do you want to hear from me? Do you think you can get the whole story from me?”

"Because in my experience," she said, "everyone with a story is trying to tell their own side.. something that would be only beneficial to them."

I looked at her.

She looked back at me steadily.

I liked her immediately.

"Then let me tell you what actually happened," I said.

I talked for almost two hours, telling Sandra everything that happened for the past years. I told her how everything turned out, from the beginning and from my own perspective.

I told her about my mother.

Sarah Blackwell was Richard Blackwell's eldest daughter and she had disappeared when she was twenty one years old after she attended a charity event.

I also told her about Amnesia. How Sarah, the daughter of a wealthy man woke up, with no memory of who exactly she was. She spent the rest of her life as the mind of a wealthy family.

They made her worth nothing.

Of course, I didn't forget to tell them about the Pierce household. I didn't make it sound worse than it was. I told her exactly everything that happened during the time I lived with the Pierce family. The way Victoria mistreated my family.

The way my half siblings treated me and made me feel like shit.

Sandra listened attentively without interrupting me at any time. She had a small notebook open but she barely wrote in it. She was just listening. Fully and completely.