Chapter 3 - The Letters That Never Arrived
While Hannah was being held behind a stone wall, Preston was searching for her through channels controlled by the people who had taken her.
He returned from Singapore two days after her disappearance.
Her apartment door was unlocked.
Her clothes remained in the closet. A grocery bag sat on the kitchen counter with spoiled milk inside. Her passport was missing, but the suitcase she used for long trips had not moved.
Preston called the police.
Before officers arrived, Richard appeared with Martin Gage, the head of Vale security.
Gage walked through the apartment and concluded that Hannah had left voluntarily.
“There are no signs of forced entry,” he said.
“The door was unlocked.”
“People leave doors unlocked when they are in a hurry.”
“She wouldn’t leave food on the counter.”
Richard placed a hand on Preston’s shoulder.
“Son, there is something you need to see.”
He gave Preston a letter.
The letter stated that Hannah had never been comfortable with the attention surrounding the Vale name. She had grown tired of waiting for Preston to choose a life outside the company. She was leaving and did not want to be found.
The signature looked like hers.
It was not perfect.
Preston noticed the final loop in the H was wrong.
He questioned it immediately.
Richard told him people wrote differently when they were emotional.
The next day, three million dollars disappeared from a private account Richard had once created for Preston’s future family. The transfer was made to a corporation registered in Hannah’s name.
Preston did not know the corporation had been established by Laurent attorneys.
The evidence was designed to destroy hope in stages.
First the letter.
Then the money.
Then the photographs.
A private investigator found images of Hannah entering a medical building in another state. In the final photograph, she was walking beside a man whose face was hidden.
The woman in the picture was not Hannah.
She had the same height, the same dark hair, and the same coat Hannah had worn during the previous winter.
Preston spent weeks trying to prove the images were false.
Every digital expert recommended by Vale Meridian confirmed they were authentic.
He stopped sleeping.
He stopped eating meals outside the office.
He began handling the financial scandal personally, as though saving the company could punish the part of him that still believed Hannah would return.
Elise Laurent became his closest ally during those months.
She arrived at meetings before him, corrected the figures that exhausted analysts overlooked, and stood between Preston and reporters when he could no longer hide his anger.
She never asked him to discuss Hannah.
That was why he trusted her.
Six months after the disappearance, Richard proposed the merger with Laurent Group.
“Vale Meridian needs stability,” Richard said. “Victor has capital. We have the infrastructure contracts. Together, the company survives.”
Preston studied the draft agreement.
Laurent Group would receive forty-nine percent of Vale Meridian immediately, with an option to purchase an additional two percent if certain financial conditions were not met.
Those conditions were almost impossible.
“This gives Victor control,” Preston said.
“It gives us time.”
“What does Elise receive?”
Richard looked directly at him.
“A seat beside you.”
Preston understood.
The financial press had already begun describing Preston and Elise as the next great corporate partnership. Their families had known each other for decades. An engagement would calm investors.
“I won’t marry someone to move a stock price.”
“Elise is aware that this would be an arrangement.”
“That makes it worse.”
Richard’s expression hardened.
“Thousands of employees could lose their jobs.”
It was always the strongest weapon in the Vale family.
Duty.
Preston postponed the decision for months.
Then a second scandal emerged. A whistleblower accused Vale Meridian of hiding defects in a bridge project. Although the accusation was later proven false, banks suspended financing.
Victor offered rescue funds.
The condition was a signed merger.
Elise offered something different.
A private agreement.
“We don’t have to marry,” she told Preston. “We only have to let the board believe we might.”
“Your father won’t accept that.”
“My father accepts whatever moves him closer to power.”
Preston looked at her.
“Why are you helping me?”
Elise’s answer was simple.
“Because unlike our fathers, I know what it feels like to be treated like part of a transaction.”
They announced a formal partnership, not an engagement.
Rumors did the rest.
During that same week, Preston received the first letter that made him question everything.
It arrived without a return address.
The page contained one sentence.
She did not leave willingly.
Preston took it to Martin Gage.
Gage examined the paper and called it a cruel attempt at extortion.
Two days later, the original vanished from Preston’s office.
Gage claimed it had been sent to a laboratory.
The laboratory had no record of receiving it.
Preston fired him.
Richard objected.
Victor immediately offered Laurent security personnel to protect the company during the transition.
Preston refused, but the board approved them.
By the time he realized Victor’s people controlled access to Vale Tower, it was too late.
Another letter arrived.
This one included a copy of Hannah’s first message from captivity.
Preston, they say you sent them. Please tell me this is not true.
He confronted Richard.
His father denied seeing it.
For the first time, Preston searched Richard’s office without permission.
He found nothing connected to Hannah.
He did find a copy of Evelyn Vale’s trust.
Several pages had been removed.
Preston brought the damaged document to Naomi Bell.
Naomi had served as the family’s attorney for eighteen years. She was loyal to Vale Meridian, but her loyalty had never made her careless.
“I need the complete version,” Preston said.
“Your father controls the original.”
“Can you obtain another copy?”
“The court archive should have one.”
“Should?”
Naomi looked toward the closed door.
“Your mother created the trust through a private legal office that closed after her death. The archive was transferred twice.”
“Why would pages be missing from my father’s copy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
Naomi searched for four months.
The day before the merger signing, she located a sealed duplicate in a storage facility under Evelyn’s maiden name.
Inside was the succession clause.
If Preston had a biological child, the controlling shares would be placed into a protected trust for that child until age thirty. Preston would serve as temporary steward, but he could not sell, transfer, or pledge them.
The clause meant the Laurent merger could not proceed if Hannah’s baby was Preston’s.
Naomi called him at six in the morning.
Before she could explain, someone disconnected the call.
At eight, she received a message from her own number telling Preston the archive contained nothing important.
Naomi realized the company’s communications had been compromised.
She printed the documents and carried them by hand to the conference room.
That was why she looked almost relieved when Hannah opened the doors.
The power outage lasted less than three minutes.
When the lights returned, Victor Laurent was gone.
So were the two security guards outside.
Naomi’s briefcase remained in her hand.
The flash drive remained on the table.
But Hannah’s cracked phone had disappeared.
Elise searched beneath the chairs.
“It was here.”
Richard looked toward the emergency exit.
“Victor took it.”
“No,” Hannah said.
She pointed toward the glass wall.
A faint handprint marked the inside of the conference room door.
Someone had entered while the lights were out.
Preston checked the access log.
Only one badge had opened the room.
May you like
The badge belonged to Daniel Cruz, the security officer who had helped Hannah escape.
According to Laurent Group records, Daniel Cruz had died six months earlier.
