Chapter 240: Cedric Skye

Chapter 240: Cedric Skye
Cedric Skye had chosen his hiding place with the arrogance of a man who believed his name could outlast scandal.

The villa stood at the far edge of the old northern district, built of pale stone and high windows, more monastery than residence. It had once belonged to a collateral Skye branch. Now it served as a private retreat no one was meant to remember.

Its security was discreet, expensive, and already neutralized by the time James stepped out of the car.

Rain had started again before dawn. By the time they entered the house, marble floors carried damp footprints and the smell of wet earth. Charlotte walked half a step behind James, not because she needed shelter, but because she knew what rage looked like when he wore it this still.

Brad was already in the study. Dean stood by the window with two security men.

Cedric sat on the sofa as if he had merely been inconvenienced rather than captured.

He looked older than the archive photographs—silver hair, perfect posture, dark tailored coat. Age had stripped away grandeur and left behind what had likely always been there:

calculation.

His gaze found Charlotte first.

“So,” he said softly, “you do have your father’s eyes.”

James dropped a file onto the table between them.

“Start.”

Cedric glanced at the file but did not touch it. “You’ve come a long way to ask questions whose answers restore nothing.”

“They’re not meant to restore,” James said. “They’re meant to bury what’s left.”

For the first time, Cedric’s composure shifted.

Charlotte stepped around the table and stopped where he would have to look directly at her. “Emma. The transfer order. The reassignment. Your name is on the administrative route.”

Cedric’s mouth flattened. “Administrative route,” he repeated, almost amused. “You make it sound bloodless.”

“It wasn’t?” Charlotte asked.

He held her gaze. “No.”

Rain tapped against the windows.

Cedric leaned back. “By the time your daughter was born, the system had already become unstable. Too many hands. Too many ambitions. The Lynns wanted leverage. The Skye trustees wanted continuity. The medical arm wanted outcomes it could turn into private capital. And your father—” his expression sharpened briefly—“discovered a conscience far too late.”

Charlotte’s fingers curled. “He tried to stop it.”

“Yes. Loudly.”

James spoke with lethal calm. “Say clearly what the system was.”

Cedric considered, then answered.

“A long-term network built around legacy families, controlled inheritances, and medically shielded child transfers. Not fantasy. Not mythology. Structure. Trusts, clinics, charitable fronts, records manipulation, succession pressure. A private machine disguised as order.”

Charlotte’s stomach turned.

Emma had not been taken because of one person’s obsession.

She had been entered into a system.

“And my daughter,” Charlotte said carefully, “was entered into it as what?”

Cedric did not blink. “A living female infant from a line considered unstable, but valuable.”

James took one step closer.

“And the twins?”

Cedric’s gaze shifted to him. “Unconfirmed at first. There were gaps. Missing scans. Contradictory records. Your wife disappeared before continuity could be imposed.”

“My wife,” James repeated.

Charlotte felt that land somewhere deep and dangerous.

She forced herself back to the point. “Who gave the final order on Emma?”

Cedric looked tired suddenly. “No single hand. That was the design. Everyone touched enough of the chain to benefit, not enough to own it. The neonatal concern was real. Her instability was noted. The transfer was justified under emergency discretion. Then the reassignment moved through a trust-backed liaison before anyone outside the circle could stop it.”

“Skye,” James said.

“Lynn distributed,” Cedric replied. “Skye facilitated. Others profited.”

Charlotte remembered Calla’s trembling confession, Harlan’s clinical language, Daisy’s satisfaction every time she spoke as if children were bargaining positions.

A machine.

Not an accident.
Not a private tragedy.

A machine.

“And my father died because he found this?”

Cedric’s gaze settled on her. “Your father died because he threatened to expose enough of it to collapse the old trust structure. Once he became expensive to keep alive, that question answered itself.”

Charlotte closed her eyes for half a second.

When she opened them again, her voice had dropped.

“And my mother?”

That brought the first real pause.

Cedric looked toward the rain-streaked window as if the memory standing there was more unpleasant than anything in the room.

“Your mother,” he said finally, “was not what you were taught. But neither was she what you now want her to be.”

James’s jaw tightened. “Speak.”

Cedric folded his hands. “She learned enough to know your family was being cornered. Not all of it. Never all of it. But enough. She came to negotiate.”

Charlotte stared at him.

“Negotiate what?”

“A way out. Or what she thought was one.” Cedric’s tone remained dry, but there was something older beneath it now. “Silence in exchange for preservation. Access in exchange for survival. She believed she could feed wolves in portions and keep the rest of the family untouched.”

The words landed harder than shouting would have.

Charlotte’s face did not move.

“How much did she know?” she asked.

Cedric answered quietly. “Enough to damn her. Not enough to save you.”

No one spoke after that.

Then James opened the file and slid photographs across the table—Emma’s reassignment code, the underground registry, the trust routes, Harlan’s notes, the collapsed shell accounts.

“You’re done,” he said. “What remains is whether you help us finish the rest.”

Cedric looked down at the photographs, and for the first time his age showed plainly.

“You won’t finish it,” he murmured.

Charlotte leaned forward.

“No,” she said. “But I will expose every hand that touched my children.”

This time, Cedric believed her.

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