Chapter 2 - The Seven-Year Theft
To understand the sheer malice in Grant Holloway’s eyes, you had to understand the seven years Claire Bennett had poured into Bennett Logistics.
Claire had built the company from an unheated garage on the south side of Chicago while Grant was still losing his father's trust fund on high-stakes poker. She had coded the proprietary tracking algorithms herself. She had secured the first twenty major freight contracts by driving twelve hours through blizzards. And when Grant proposed with tears in his eyes, promising they would build an empire together, she had made the fatal mistake of putting his name on fifty-one percent of the founder shares.
The betrayal came without warning on a rainy Tuesday.
Claire arrived at her own corporate headquarters to find her security badge deactivated. Two armed guards escorted her to the curb. Inside, Grant had forged board approvals, altered voting proxies, and sold Claire’s life’s work to an anonymous offshore conglomerate for eighty million dollars.
When she tried to sue, Grant used her own money to hire the city's most ruthless litigators. They buried her in endless injunctions, froze her personal accounts, and spread rumors that she had suffered an emotional breakdown. She was left with nothing—no job, no house, and a mountain of legal debt.
Then, three days ago, a black velvet envelope had appeared under Claire’s apartment door.
Inside was an unlisted VIP ticket to the Bellweather House annual gala, where Grant was scheduled to sign the final merger that would cement his elite status. And nestled at the bottom of the envelope was a single silver cuff link etched with a raven clutching a dagger—the historic crest of Vale Meridian.
Claire had come tonight seeking answers. She had never expected Grant to ambush her near the grand staircase, dumping his wine down her back to intimidate her into silence.
Grant thought he had crushed her forever.
He didn't realize that Roman Vale was already walking down the marble stairs.
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👉 Why did Roman Vale send that mysterious cuff link to a bankrupt woman?
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