We met again, Amelia and I, this time in the quiet study of our home, the heavy curtains drawn against the prying eyes of the world. Thomas sat with us, the faded Lockhart ledger open on the table between us.
“He means to crush us,” I said, gesturing to Silas’s public statement, a copy of which lay beside the ledger.
Amelia’s jaw was set. “He thinks he has already won.”
Thomas gently pushed the ledger towards her. “I found this. It details the acquisition of a mill, the very foundation of Silas’s wealth, through… questionable means.”
Amelia’s eyes scanned the cryptic entries, her journalist’s mind already piecing together the implications. A fabricated debt. A forced sale. It was a pattern she knew well.
“This is dangerous,” she whispered, tracing a line of old script. “Very dangerous. He will destroy anyone who tries to expose this.”
But then, her gaze sharpened. “But it is also an opportunity.”
She paused, then continued, a glint entering her eye. “I have other sources. Disgruntled former employees from his railway company. Men who have seen his ruthlessness firsthand, in completely unrelated ventures.”
“What good are they if we can’t publish this?” I asked, gesturing to the ledger.
“They might corroborate,” Amelia said, a plan forming in her mind. “If we had evidence from *outside* the family, from a source he couldn’t simply dismiss as a ‘vindictive relative,’ that speaks to the same pattern… we might stand a chance. It’s a dangerous game, Eleanor, but it’s our only play.”
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