Chapter 2 - The Call That Changed Everything
Sebastian did not ask me to leave his office.
That frightened me more than if he had.
He ordered everyone else out.
Then he locked the door.
The photograph remained between us.
“My father died eleven years ago,” he said.
“My mother supposedly died twelve.”
“Supposedly?”
“I saw a coffin. I never saw her body.”
Sebastian looked up sharply.
Neither had I ever questioned it.
At seventeen, grief was enough to make you accept things adults told you.
There had been an accident.
Closed casket.
Bad fire.
Sign here.
Stand there.
Say goodbye.
Then the world moved forward without waiting for me.
Sebastian tapped the picture.
“My father is holding you.”
“I can see that.”
“You’re maybe six months old.”
“Probably.”
“Your mother is standing beside him.”
“Yes.”
“And according to everything I knew about my father, he had never met either of you.”
A terrible possibility formed.
“Maybe he lied.”
Sebastian gave me a humorless smile.
“My father lied professionally.”
He opened a secure laptop.
Within minutes, files filled the screen.
Financial records.
Properties.
Trusts.
Names.
Sebastian worked without speaking.
Watching him was like watching a machine designed specifically to uncover secrets.
Finally, he stopped.
“There.”
“What?”
“A property.”
He turned the computer.
A house in Cold Spring, New York.
Purchased thirty years earlier by a shell corporation.
Transferred to another company when Sebastian was fifteen.
Sold after his father’s death.
The original corporation had three authorized representatives.
Sebastian Ward Sr.
Mara Feldman’s father.
And—
“Elena Hayes,” I whispered.
My mother.
Sebastian leaned back.
“She worked for my father.”
“No.”
“The documents say otherwise.”
“My mother was a bookkeeper.”
“For whom?”
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came.
She had always said private clients.
Never names.
Sebastian’s phone rang again.
Mara.
He placed it on speaker.
“Tell me.”
“We found something else,” she said.
Her voice was controlled, but strained.
“The Midtown vault Elena Hayes accessed was originally registered to your father.”
Sebastian’s eyes met mine.
“What was inside?”
“We don’t know.”
“Why?”
“Because when bank security entered, the deposit box was empty.”
“Video?”
“Already sent.”
Sebastian opened the file.
The footage showed the same woman.
My mother’s face.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
She entered alone.
Stayed seventeen minutes.
Left carrying a black leather envelope.
At the door, she looked directly into the security camera.
Then she raised her hand.
I stopped breathing.
A silver ring sat on her finger.
I remembered that ring.
She had worn it every day of my childhood.
Sebastian paused the video.
“Valerie?”
“That’s her.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
Mara spoke through the phone.
“There’s more.”
Sebastian’s expression hardened.
“Of course there is.”
“Elena called my office after leaving the bank.”
My entire body went cold.
“What did she say?”
Mara hesitated.
“She asked if Sebastian had found Valerie yet.”
Neither of us moved.
Then Sebastian said, “Send the recording.”
“No.”
The word surprised both of us.
Sebastian’s eyes sharpened. “Mara.”
“You need to understand something first.”
“What?”
“Your father made me promise never to give you this information unless Elena returned.”
Sebastian stood slowly.
“Give me what information?”
“The real reason your father was murdered.”
Everything inside the room changed.
Sebastian’s father’s death was part of New York criminal mythology.
Ambushed in a restaurant parking garage.
Three attackers.
No survivors.
The story everyone knew was that it had been a rival organization.
Sebastian had spent a decade destroying that family financially.
Apparently, he had destroyed the wrong people.
“Mara,” he said, terrifyingly calm, “you have ten seconds.”
“Your father discovered someone inside his own organization was selling names to federal investigators.”
“Who?”
“We never found out.”
“You had eleven years.”
“Because the ledger identifying the traitor disappeared the night he died.”
My eyes moved to the photograph.
“Elena had it,” I said.
Mara became silent.
Sebastian looked at me.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t.”
But suddenly I remembered the box beneath my mother’s bed.
The way she used to lock her bedroom when strangers visited.
The fire.
The closed coffin.
The warning.
Ward must never find what you took.
Maybe the sentence had never meant Sebastian.
Maybe it meant someone else carrying his name.
Sebastian ended the call after ordering Mara to come immediately.
Then he turned toward me.
“You’re leaving.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“You’re going somewhere secure.”
“No.”
“This stopped being negotiable.”
“So you can investigate my mother without me?”
“So I can keep you alive.”
“Sebastian—”
“Someone shut down forty-three seconds of security inside one of the most protected buildings in Manhattan to leave that box downstairs.”
His voice remained low.
“That person knows where you are.”
My anger vanished.
“What happens in three days?”
“I intend to find out.”
“And me?”
His eyes moved across my face.
Something darker than anger appeared there.
Fear.
“You stay alive.”
Two hours later, I was inside a black SUV heading north.
Sebastian sat beside me.
Apparently sending me somewhere safe had transformed into taking me there personally.
“Where are we going?”
“My estate.”
“You own an estate?”
“I own several.”
“Of course you do.”
For a moment, his mouth almost moved into a smile.
Then three SUVs appeared behind us.
Sebastian glanced into the mirror.
His hand moved toward his phone.
“Those yours?”
“No.”
The driver accelerated.
My heartbeat exploded.
“Sebastian?”
“Seat belt.”
“It’s already—”
“Lower your head.”
The first SUV came closer.
Sebastian’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A distorted voice spoke through the car speakers.
“Sebastian Ward.”
Sebastian stared through the windshield.
“Who is this?”
“You’re driving in the wrong direction.”
“And you’re making a mistake.”
The voice laughed.
“No. Your father made the mistake. Elena tried to correct it.”
I grabbed Sebastian’s arm.
The caller continued.
“Ask Valerie what her mother told her about the Ward family.”
Sebastian looked at me.
I shook my head.
The voice lowered.
“Ask her why Elena spent twelve years pretending to be dead.”
Then the line disconnected.
Behind us, all three SUVs suddenly slowed.
They turned off at the next exit.
Sebastian stared after them.
“They weren’t attacking.”
“No.”
“They wanted us scared.”
“No,” he said.
He looked at me.
“They wanted you asking questions.”
That evening, we reached his Hudson Valley estate.
The property looked more like a fortress disguised as a luxury home.
Stone walls.
Private lake.
Security gates.
Staff who barely made noise.
Sebastian placed me in a guest suite across from his own bedroom.
After dinner, neither of us discussed the previous night.
Maybe because there were too many new things to fear.
I was preparing for bed when someone slid an envelope beneath my door.
My name was handwritten on the front.
Valerie.
I opened it.
Inside was a single page.
The handwriting belonged to my mother.
I recognized it instantly.
My Darling Valerie,
If you are reading this, Sebastian Ward has discovered the photograph.
Do not trust anyone who tells you his father died because of a rival family.
Do not trust the attorney.
And whatever happens—
Do not tell Sebastian who his real mother was.
May you like
I read the final sentence three times.
Then I heard Sebastian’s footsteps approaching my door.
