Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN IN THE CAR
I don’t remember crossing the room.
One second I was beside the conference table.
The next I had my hand on the door.
Diane caught my arm.
“Elena.”
“He took her.”
“We don’t know that.”
“We watched him put her in his car.”
“He may be driving her home.”
“With fifty thousand dollars, passports, and a flight to Geneva?”
Diane released me.
My father made one call.
“Track Julian’s company vehicle.”
A security technician answered from the speaker.
“Vehicle telemetry was disabled six minutes ago.”
Of course it was.
Julian knew the systems.
I had taught him half of them.
I suddenly hated every secret I had ever shared with him.
“Claire’s phone?” I asked.
“We can’t track a private device without consent.”
I called her.
Voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
Then a text arrived.
From Claire.
I’m okay. Mr. Mercer is taking me home.
I stared at it.
Diane looked over my shoulder.
“That’s good.”
“No.”
“What?”
“That isn’t Claire.”
“How do you know?”
“Claire calls him Julian when she speaks to me.”
My father looked up.
I typed:
Glad you’re safe. Did you still want those documents from the blue archive?
The three dots appeared.
Then:
Yes. Send them.
I showed Diane.
“There is no blue archive.”
Her face changed.
My father said, “Call the police.”
At 1:44 a.m., everything accelerated.
Corporate counsel.
Local law enforcement.
Airport security contacts.
Bank fraud teams.
The perfect image Julian had spent years building started cracking faster than I could process.
Then my phone rang.
Julian.
Everyone went silent.
I answered.
“Elena.”
His voice sounded controlled.
Too controlled.
“Where are you?”
“Why?”
“We need to talk.”
“About Vanessa?”
A pause.
“This isn’t about Vanessa.”
“Funny. Forty minutes ago you threw me into the rain because of her.”
“I made a mistake.”
I almost smiled.
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
His breathing changed.
“Elena, whatever your father told you, he’s manipulating you.”
“My father didn’t forge my signature.”
Silence.
There it was.
A tiny crack.
“You don’t understand those documents.”
“I understand my own name.”
“You signed dozens of authorizations.”
“Not those.”
He stopped pretending.
“Elena, listen to me carefully.”
“No. You listen.”
My hands were shaking, but my voice wasn’t.
“You are suspended as CEO effective 1:14 this morning.”
Silence.
“You can’t do that.”
“I already did.”
“This is my company.”
“No, Julian.”
I stared at his framed magazine cover on my father’s office television screen, displayed in an old news article.
“It was never your company.”
He laughed.
But there was panic under it now.
“You think your father can just walk in and take everything?”
“He doesn’t have to walk in.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means the Vale Heritage Trust owns eleven of the fourteen resort properties you operate.”
Nothing.
For the first time since I had met Julian, he had no words.
I continued.
“The trust also controls forty-two percent of Mercer Hospitality. I personally hold twenty-nine.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“You told me your father was a minority investor.”
“No. I told you he was an investor.”
“You let me build this company!”
“I built it with you.”
“You hid this from me.”
“I protected my family assets.”
“From your husband?”
I almost laughed.
“Turns out that was a pretty good decision.”
Then I heard something in the background.
A woman crying.
Claire.
My blood went cold.
“Where is she?”
Julian went silent.
“Put Claire on the phone.”
“Elena—”
“PUT HER ON.”
A muffled voice.
Then Julian whispered, “You’re making this worse.”
“No. You are.”
He hung up.
Ten seconds later, a second text arrived from Claire’s phone.
This one was only four words.
PLEASE DO WHAT HE SAYS.
And beneath it was a photograph.
Claire sitting in the passenger seat.
May you like
Crying.
With blood running from her lip.
