Chapter 4 - The Call That Never Reached Him
Three weeks before Christmas, Sophie borrowed the kitchen telephone.
Nathan was in Zurich, preparing to enter a meeting when his private phone rang. He answered immediately.
“Daddy?”
Sophie’s voice was barely audible.
Nathan stepped away from his advisers.
“What’s wrong?”
“Are you coming home soon?”
“I’ll be there for Christmas. Is something happening?”
There was a pause.
In the background, Nathan heard a door open.
Sophie whispered, “We’re hungry.”
The call ended.
Nathan called back, but no one answered. He contacted Vanessa.
She sounded amused.
“The girls refused lunch because they wanted cake. Sophie is being dramatic.”
“Let me speak to her.”
“They’re already in bed.”
“It’s five in the afternoon.”
“They were misbehaving.”
Nathan’s concern deepened, but Vanessa quickly redirected the conversation. She reminded him that the acquisition required his attention and accused him of undermining her authority.
“You asked me to help raise them,” she said. “You can’t question every decision I make.”
Nathan apologized.
The next morning, however, his security director, Daniel Reyes, entered the hotel conference room carrying a tablet.
“You asked me months ago to notify you about unusual access to the family accounts,” Daniel said. “There have been several withdrawals.”
Nathan reviewed the figures.
At first, he assumed they were accounting errors. Then he saw the payments to a tutoring company he had never heard of.
He called the girls’ school. Their teacher confirmed that all private lessons had stopped two months earlier.
Nathan’s face hardened.
“Does Vanessa know you’re checking this?” Daniel asked.
“No.”
“Should we confront her?”
Nathan looked at Ava’s drawing, which he had placed beside his laptop.
“Not yet.”
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For the first time since his marriage, Nathan stopped accepting explanations.
He began searching for evidence.
