Chapter 6 - The Enemy Inside My Father's CompanyBy sunrise, my honeymoon yacht had become a federal crime scene.
Agents moved through the corridors photographing medication, computers, broken locks, blood near the captain's office, and every inch of the stern where Flynn tried to drop me into the sea.
I sat in the salon wearing borrowed sweatpants and one of Maya's oversized sweaters.
My wedding ring sat on the table.
I had removed it while giving my statement.
I couldn't stand feeling it on my skin.
Special Agent Marcus Hale arrived by helicopter after dawn.
He was in his late forties, broad-shouldered, with the exhausted expression of a man who had learned long ago that wealthy families could create just as much chaos as anyone else.
“Mrs. Callahan?”
“Evelyn Davenport.”
His eyes flicked toward my ring.
“Understood.”
Naomi had reached a Coast Guard station on shore and joined by secure video call.
Together, we went through every detail again.
When I mentioned Flynn's final statement about the plane, Hale didn't react visibly.
“Did your parents have a scheduled flight?”
“Yes. Private jet. Anniversary trip to France next month.”
“Who has access?”
“My father’s aviation department. Pilots. Maintenance contractors. Executive assistants.”
“Anyone in your husband's family?”
“Not officially.”
Hale wrote something down.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Did Mr. Callahan ever ask about your parents’ travel?”
I remembered dozens of ordinary conversations.
Dinner.
Breakfast.
Car rides.
Flynn casually asking when Dad would be away.
Whether Mom still hated commercial flights.
Whether our family used the same aviation company.
Questions I had interpreted as interest.
Now every memory felt contaminated.
“All the time.”
Hale looked at me.
“He wasn't getting to know your family. He was gathering logistics.”
That hurt more than I expected.
The laboratory team conducted a preliminary test on the pills.
Sedatives.
Powerful enough, especially when mixed with alcohol, to cause severe impairment.
The drink Maya saved contained traces of the same compound.
More evidence.
But Flynn's claim about the plane became the urgent problem.
I called my father.
He wanted to shut down the entire aviation department.
Hale advised against it.
“If someone inside your company is involved, we don't want them knowing we're looking.”
My father hated that.
“So I'm supposed to let the person planning to kill my wife sit at their desk?”
“We're supposed to let them believe nothing changed.”
I looked at Dad through the screen.
“Do it.”
His eyes moved to mine.
“Evelyn—”
“Flynn thought I was drugged because I let him think I was drugged. Let whoever is inside the company think Flynn's plan succeeded.”
Silence.
Naomi immediately understood.
Hale did too.
Dad didn't.
“Absolutely not.”
“If the news says I survived, whoever helped them disappears.”
“You want me to announce my daughter died?”
“No.”
I thought carefully.
“Don't announce anything.”
The yacht was offshore.
Authorities could temporarily control information.
Flynn and Aidan were in custody, but no public booking yet.
For several hours, perhaps longer, we had an advantage.
The conspirator inside Davenport Maritime might still believe tonight had gone according to plan.
Agent Hale began building a controlled operation.
My father contacted only three people inside his company.
His general counsel.
Chief security officer.
Head of aviation.
Hale stopped him at the third name.
“Who is that?”
“Victor Shaw.”
The name gave me a strange feeling.
Victor had worked for my father almost twenty years.
Tall.
Polished.
Gray-haired.
He attended my wedding.
He had hugged Flynn after the ceremony.
“What?”
Dad noticed my expression.
“Nothing.”
But there was something.
At the rehearsal dinner, Victor had made a toast.
To family.
To legacy.
Then he had said something odd.
“Sometimes the past waits longer than we expect to collect its debts.”
Everyone laughed because it sounded poetic.
Now it sounded different.
“Dad, where did Victor work before Davenport?”
“I don't know. Aviation consulting, I think.”
“Before that?”
My father frowned.
“I can check.”
Hale leaned forward.
“Don't.”
He assigned agents to investigate quietly.
Two hours later, we had an answer.
Victor Shaw had changed his name.
His birth name was Victor Callahan.
Aidan's older half-brother.
Flynn's great-uncle.
The room went completely silent.
My father looked as if someone had struck him.
“I've known him twenty years.”
That was exactly the point.
Flynn hadn't infiltrated my family two years ago when he started dating me.
The Callahans had infiltrated my father's company two decades earlier.
Flynn was only the final move.
Victor controlled corporate aircraft maintenance.
He had access to flight schedules.
And he had been personally assigned to oversee the jet my parents intended to use next month.
Hale immediately ordered surveillance.
“Do we arrest him?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because we still don't know who else is involved.”
The answer exhausted me.
Every discovery opened another door.
Every door revealed another betrayal.
I thought Flynn had married me for money.
Then revenge.
Now I understood the marriage itself might have been part of a plan stretching back years.
Agent Hale requested access to Flynn's financial records.
Naomi started emergency divorce and asset protection filings.
My father's board was quietly notified.
Everything moved fast.
But not fast enough.
At 11:42 a.m., an agent watching Victor's house called Hale.
Victor had left.
He wasn't going to the office.
He was heading toward Davenport Airfield.
My father stood.
“That's where the jet is.”
Hale was already moving.
“Stay here.”
“I own the airfield.”
“And someone there may be planning to kill you.”
Dad looked at me.
I knew exactly what he wanted to do.
The same thing I had done on the yacht.
Run toward the danger.
“No,” I said.
He stared.
“You don't get to lecture me.”
“I nearly fell into the Atlantic six hours ago. I absolutely get to lecture you.”
My mother almost smiled despite everything.
Dad sat.
Agents converged on the airfield.
For nineteen minutes, we waited.
Then Hale's phone rang.
His expression changed.
“What happened?”
He put it on speaker.
An agent spoke over loud machinery.
“We have Shaw.”
Everyone exhaled.
Then the agent continued.
“But we found something.”
“What?”
“A device attached inside the aircraft.”
My mother gripped my father's hand.
“Explosive?”
“No.”
Hale frowned.
“Then what?”
“A modified fuel-line control. Designed to fail remotely in flight.”
My skin crawled.
A mechanical failure.
Exactly what Flynn had described.
Then the agent said the part that changed everything.
“It was installed three months ago.”
Three months.
Before my wedding.
Before my honeymoon.
Flynn's family had planned my parents' deaths before Flynn and I exchanged vows.
My father whispered, “Three months?”
Hale asked, “Who serviced the aircraft?”
The agent named a contractor.
Dad shook his head.
“We don't use them.”
“Records say you did.”
“Impossible.”
Hale's expression hardened.
“Then someone forged the records.”
Victor was arrested.
But when agents searched his vehicle, they found a burner phone.
Its messages contained references to Flynn.
Aidan.
The yacht.
And someone identified only as “R.”
One message had been sent the morning of my wedding.
BRIDE STILL UNAWARE. PROCEED WITH PHASE TWO AFTER CEREMONY.
Another:
IF FLYNN FAILS, R WILL HANDLE THE DAVENPORTS PERSONALLY.
My father stared at the screen.
“Who is R?”
No one knew.
Victor refused to talk.
Flynn demanded a lawyer.
Aidan said everything had been Flynn's idea.
The family immediately began turning against one another.
But “R” remained invisible.
Until Naomi searched the wedding guest list.
There were eleven people whose first names began with R.
Ten had no meaningful connection to the Callahans.
The eleventh did.
I stared at the name and felt the room tilt.
Rachel Davenport.
My father's younger sister.
My aunt.
The woman who helped my mother choose my wedding dress.
The woman who held my hand at Grandma Rose's funeral.
The woman who had spent every Thanksgiving of my life sitting beside my father.
“No,” Dad said.
Naomi's voice was quiet.
“Henry, Rachel owns twenty-two percent of Davenport Maritime.”
“She would never—”
“If you and Evelyn die?”
Naomi looked at the trust documents.
“She becomes controlling shareholder.”
Dad stopped speaking.
There it was.
The missing motive.
Flynn wanted revenge.
Aidan wanted money.
Victor wanted the Callahan family restored.
But my aunt Rachel?
She had something none of them possessed.
A direct path to my father's empire.
Then my mother's phone rang.
Rachel.
Everyone froze.
Mom stared at the screen.
“Answer it,” Hale said.
She did.
“Rachel?”
My aunt sounded cheerful.
“Good morning! Have you heard from Evelyn? I tried calling her, but it keeps going straight to voicemail.”
My mother looked at me.
I shook my head.
Mom forced her voice steady.
“No. Why?”
A pause.
“Oh, nothing.”
Rachel laughed.
“I just had the strangest dream about her.”
“What kind of dream?”
Another pause.
Then Rachel said softly:
“I dreamed she fell into the ocean.”
Nobody moved.
My mother whispered, “That's strange.”
“Isn't it?”
Rachel's voice remained pleasant.
“Anyway, call me when you hear from her.”
The line went dead.
Agent Hale stared at the phone.
My father looked twenty years older.
I said the only thing any of us could say.
“She knows.”
Hale nodded.
“And now she knows we know.”
Then the security alarm at my parents’ estate began screaming through the video feed.
My mother looked toward the window.
May you like
Outside, smoke rose beyond the trees.
Someone had just breached the property.
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