Chapter 3 - The Phone Call
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On the other end of the line, miles away in a high-rise office in downtown Chicago, Lena’s father, Arthur Vance, was standing by the panoramic window, his knuckles white against his bespoke desk. Arthur was fifty-eight, his hair silvered with stress, his tailored business suit hanging slightly loose from months of sleepless nights.
"Derek," Arthur’s voice came through the speakerphone, thick with restrained fury and heartbreaking grief. "Did you get to my little girl?"
"I have her, Arthur," Derek answered calmly, never taking his eyes off Travis, who was kneeling on the floor, clutching his dislocated shoulder. "She's hurt, but she's alive."
"Put that coward on speaker," Arthur commanded.
Derek shoved the phone right into Travis’s pale face.
Travis spat at the floor, attempting to regain his arrogant posture despite the tears of pain in his eyes. "Arthur! Tell your psycho brother-in-law to let me go! Your daughter broke into my private safe! She stole company documents! I have every legal right to defend my property!"
"Property?" Arthur’s voice turned into a deep, thunderous growl that made Travis blink. "Lena isn't property, Travis. And that safe you're talking about? That house you're standing in? That five million dollars you transferred out of Vance Holdings yesterday morning? None of it was ever yours."
Travis’s smirk flickered. A seed of panic took root in his chest. "What are you talking about? I am the majority shareholder now! Your board signed the transfer last week!"
"My board didn't sign anything, Travis," Arthur said slowly, every word cutting like a scalpel. "You had my signature forged while I was in the ICU after my heart attack. You thought I was going to die on that ventilator, didn't you?"
Travis’s throat went bone dry.
"I was never supposed to wake up," Arthur whispered. "Was I, Travis?"
👉 What dark secret had Lena actually found inside Travis’s locked safe?
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