The Captain’s Daughter
Chapter 08 - The Captain’s Daughter
Celia Voss worked as a hospitality recruiter and had never spoken publicly about her father.
Naomi found her in a rented apartment near the airport with a packed suitcase.
Celia surrendered before agents entered.
She admitted placing Mira aboard the Aurelia.
Her father had monitored Lydia and Mira for years. After Lydia died, Marcus searched the apartment for the pocket watch but found nothing.
Celia discovered his files.
She learned about the North Star, pension theft, and Gabriel’s child.
“I could not go to the police,” she said. “My father had officers, judges, and port officials in his pocket.”
“So you put me in front of Beatrice?” Mira asked.
“I put you near the chart safe. I thought Elena would recognize you.”
“You used me as bait.”
“Yes.”
The honesty did not excuse it.
Celia believed the gala offered the only public setting where Beatrice could not make Mira disappear quietly. She did not anticipate the slap, but she expected confrontation.
She also carried copies of Marcus’s private payments and a recording of him arguing with Beatrice one week earlier.
On the audio, Marcus demanded more money.
Beatrice replied:
The girl turns twenty-two next month. Get the watch before the trust court receives any anonymous claim.
Someone had already alerted the court that a firstborn descendant might exist.
Celia sent the anonymous claim.
Her plan was dangerous, manipulative, and partly successful.
Mira wanted her charged.
Naomi explained that prosecutors would decide based on cooperation and intent.
Mira struggled with the answer.
People from powerful systems often excused harm by pointing to good outcomes. Celia had done something similar from the other side.
“You could have contacted me,” Mira said.
“I thought you would run.”
“That was my decision to make.”
Celia lowered her eyes.
The DNA result arrived that afternoon.
Mira was Gabriel Vale’s biological daughter.
Under the original maritime trust, she owned forty-one percent of Vale Maritime immediately. Adrian held ten percent. Beatrice’s voting block had been created through amendments signed after Gabriel’s death.
The court froze all major company transactions.
Beatrice called an emergency shareholder meeting.
Her lawyers argued Gabriel’s marriage was invalid because Lydia used a false address on the certificate. They also claimed Mira’s mother concealed her identity, violating trust disclosure rules.
Mira’s attorney found the deeper trap.
The trust did not simply give Mira shares.
It named the firstborn descendant personal trustee of the seafarers’ pension reserve.
If the stolen money was not restored, Mira could be blamed for the fund’s current insolvency.
Beatrice had hidden the heir long enough to inherit power and prepared the debt to fall upon her once discovered.
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The crown inside the watch was not a prize.
It was a bill.
