Chapter 4 - Room 19
Elena opened a cabinet beneath the kitchen counter and pressed a hidden switch.
A panel beside the refrigerator released.
Behind it was a narrow service corridor.
Nathan stared at her.
“How long have you been preparing for this?”
“Long enough to know they never knock.”
The apartment door shook.
Elena pushed Nathan into the corridor and followed him. She closed the hidden panel just as the outer door opened.
They moved through darkness, guided by the light from Elena’s phone. The corridor ended at a steel ladder descending toward the tailor shop.
Above them, footsteps crossed the apartment.
Nathan heard drawers opening.
Paper tearing.
One of the men spoke.
“Find the ledger.”
Elena climbed down first.
The tailor shop was empty except for covered sewing machines and racks of unfinished suits. They exited through a back window and crossed a fenced courtyard.
Nathan’s phone buzzed.
Vanessa was calling.
He ignored it.
She called again.
Then she sent a message.
ADRIAN IS LYING TO ME. I NEED TO SEE YOU.
Elena read the message over his shoulder.
“She is lying too.”
“I know.”
“But you’re considering meeting her.”
“She may know what Adrian promised her.”
“Or Adrian may be using her to bring you somewhere without witnesses.”
Nathan slipped the phone into his pocket.
“She signed away my voting rights. I’m not confusing her with an ally.”
“But?”
“She was my wife for nine years. I want to know when she stopped being one.”
Elena gave him a look that contained more sympathy than judgment.
“That answer may not help you.”
They reached a parking garage where an older gray sedan waited. Elena drove while Nathan examined the copied folder.
Page seventeen transferred his voting rights to Vanessa upon insolvency.
Page eighteen assigned those rights to Halcyon Capital as collateral.
Page nineteen contained a board resolution removing Nathan as chief executive if any criminal investigation threatened Blackridge’s value.
The resolution already carried four signatures.
Adrian needed only one more.
Vanessa’s.
Nathan looked at the dates.
“The board vote is tomorrow morning.”
“At nine.”
“If they remove me, Adrian controls the company before the debt is even challenged.”
“That is the plan.”
Nathan opened the banking app on his phone.
His personal accounts had been restricted. His company card had been canceled. Even the line of credit secured by his apartment was unavailable.
Adrian had isolated him financially in a single day.
“What resources do we have?” Nathan asked.
“I have records.”
“I mean money, lawyers, access.”
Elena turned onto the highway.
“You have Margaret Vale.”
Nathan looked at her.
“How do you know I contacted Margaret?”
“I helped protect the email.”
“Were you monitoring me?”
“I was monitoring Adrian’s surveillance of you.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the answer you get tonight.”
The sedan passed beneath an overpass.
Headlights appeared behind them.
The same black sedan from outside the pharmacy.
Elena accelerated.
Nathan watched it close the distance.
“They found us quickly.”
“They were probably tracking your phone.”
Nathan removed the device’s case. A tiny metallic square was attached near the camera.
“A tracker?”
“Not exactly. It mirrors your network handshakes.”
He threw the case out of the window.
The black sedan continued following.
“They have another method,” he said.
Elena checked the rearview mirror.
“Your watch.”
Nathan removed it.
The recording of Adrian’s confession was stored inside.
He could not throw it away.
Elena reached into the glove compartment and handed him a silver pouch.
“Put it inside.”
The watch disappeared into the signal-blocking material.
The sedan slowed behind them.
Then it turned off at the next exit.
Elena exhaled.
“Adrian has been tracking you longer than tonight.”
Nathan stared at the pouch.
The watch had been a gift from Vanessa.
She had given it to him six months earlier.
He remembered her fastening it around his wrist and smiling.
For your impossible schedule, she had said.
Elena drove toward a quiet residential district north of the city.
Margaret Vale lived in a brick house surrounded by bare trees. A light was already burning in the front room.
Before they reached the door, Margaret opened it.
She was seventy-one, silver-haired, and still carried herself like the courtroom attorney Nathan remembered from childhood.
She looked at Elena first.
“You were followed?”
“No.”
“You’re certain?”
“As certain as anyone can be tonight.”
Margaret turned to Nathan.
“You look like your father did the night he discovered Blackridge had a second set of owners.”
Nathan stopped.
“What did you say?”
Margaret’s expression became guarded.
“You need to come inside.”
“Did my father know about Halcyon?”
“He created Halcyon.”
The cold air seemed to leave Nathan’s lungs.
May you like
Margaret stepped aside.
“And if Adrian has activated the debt agreement, then Charles Mercer’s oldest secret is about to become your legal nightmare.”
