Chapter 5 - THE MAN WHO WAS SENT TO ME
I remembered the fundraiser perfectly.
A downtown hotel.
Two hundred executives.
A cybersecurity scholarship auction.
I had been twenty-eight and exhausted from a product launch.
Evelyn had insisted I attend.
Ryan had approached me near the balcony.
He made me laugh.
He remembered my coffee order the next morning.
Six months later, we were engaged.
I had spent years calling it fate.
Now I wanted to tear the memory apart.
Simon searched older corporate records.
Mara called a private investigator she trusted.
I searched my email archive.
At one twenty-three in the afternoon, I found the invitation Evelyn had sent me.
PLEASE COME.
THERE'S SOMEONE I THINK YOU SHOULD MEET.
I had assumed she meant donors.
Now the sentence looked different.
I searched Ryan's old messages.
Our first exchange began ten minutes after he approached me.
He had known my full name.
My company.
My job title.
That wasn't unusual at a corporate fundraiser.
But then I found something else.
An old photograph from the event.
Ryan standing across the ballroom.
Beside him was Grant.
Grant had always told me he hadn't met me until four months later.
He had lied.
I enlarged the image.
A woman stood behind them.
Evelyn.
Mara came beside me.
“That isn't coincidence.”
“No.”
My phone rang again.
This time it was Brooke.
I answered.
“Where are you?”
Her voice was barely audible.
“Why?”
“Because Dad is out.”
I stood.
“What?”
“His attorney got him released pending the next hearing.”
“That was fast.”
“You know Dad.”
Apparently I didn't.
Brooke breathed shakily.
“Claire, I need to tell you something.”
“Then tell me.”
“I was recording last night because Ryan told me to.”
Mara looked at me.
“Why?”
“He said you were going to have a meltdown.”
My skin prickled.
“What?”
“He told us you were unstable because of the pregnancy.”
“Brooke, your father burned me.”
“I know.”
“Did Ryan know Grant was going to do it?”
Silence.
“Brooke.”
“I don't know.”
That was not convincing.
“Why did Ryan want video?”
“He said he needed proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That you were dangerous.”
I sat down.
The plan became clear in pieces.
They had expected me to react.
They wanted a recording of the reaction.
A pregnant woman screaming.
Breaking things.
Maybe hitting someone.
Maybe looking unstable.
Then Grant pushed too far.
Or maybe he hadn't.
“Where are you?”
I asked.
Brooke whispered an address.
It was a parking garage near Cherry Creek.
“Stay there.”
“No.”
Her breathing became faster.
“I can't.”
“Why?”
“Because someone followed me.”
Mara grabbed her phone.
“Brooke, stay on the line.”
A car horn sounded through the speaker.
Brooke gasped.
Then I heard footsteps.
Fast footsteps.
“Brooke?”
“Claire, I found something in Dad's office.”
“What?”
“A folder with your name on it.”
The call cut out.
I stared at the phone.
Mara was already dialing police.
Then a photograph arrived from Brooke's number.
A file folder lay open across a passenger seat.
On the first page was my photograph.
May you like
Underneath it were three words.
ASSET ACQUISITION TARGET.
