“Arthur was dying of stomach cancer for three years,” Thomas said softly, his voice dropping into a dark, calm rhythm. “The last eighteen months, he was entirely dependent on the morphine I administered to him. He was senile, Richard. He spent his final days talking to his dead mother and staring at the wall.”
Thomas walked over to the grand fireplace, looking up at the massive oil portrait of Arthur Carson that dominated the room.
“But I wasn’t senile,” Thomas continued, a thin, sharp smile finally breaking through his butler’s facade. “Alistair used to talk on his secure phone while I was vacuuming the rug, assuming a servant didn’t know what a ‘pension deficit’ meant. Julian left his corporate laptop unlocked on the study table while I brought him his midnight coffee. And Victoria… Victoria wasn’t very discreet when she sneaked into the guest room with her sister’s husband while Eleanor was at a charity gala.”
“You fed the information to Arthur,” Sterling whispered, a cold sweat breaking out across his neck. “You made him believe his family was destroying him.”
“They were destroying him,” Thomas corrected gently. “I merely provided the documentation. I reminded him, night after night, as I wiped the sweat from his forehead, that his children were counting the days until his funeral. I helped him write the script for those videos. I bought the flash drives.”
“And the clause leaving everything to you?”
“Arthur wanted to leave the money to an animal shelter to spite them,” Thomas laughed softly, a low, gravelly sound. “I convinced him that the ultimate humiliation for the Carson bloodline—the thing that would truly break their aristocratic pride—was to see the man who cleaned their toilets sit in their father’s chair. He thought it was a brilliant psychological joke. He died laughing.”
Sterling stared at the old butler, suddenly realizing that the most dangerous predator in the Carson empire had never been the billionaire in the casket. It was the man who had been standing in the corner, holding the silver tray, watching them reveal their throats for forty-five years.
“What are you going to do with the company, Thomas?” Sterling asked, his voice trembling slightly.
Thomas walked over to the grand mahogany desk, running his rough, calloused fingers over the smooth wood. He picked up the remote control for the estate’s massive iron security gates and pressed the button, locking the world outside.
“Tomorrow morning, I will authorize the release of the unedited files to the federal prosecutors,” Thomas said, his green eyes flashing with a cold, absolute authority. “Alistair will go to a federal penitentiary. Julian will be indicted for corporate espionage. Eleanor and Victoria will spend the rest of their lives destroying each other in court over the remnants of their trust funds. And I…”
Thomas sat down in Arthur Carson’s leather executive chair, leaning back into the cushions that still smelled faintly of the dead man’s cologne.
“I think I’m going to remodel the house,” Thomas whispered into the quiet room. “The floors have been creaking for far too long.”
