Chapter: Chapter 61Xavier's phone lit up with fourteen missed calls the moment they got back into cell range, all from Halloran, the last one timestamped less than twenty minutes earlier."Something's wrong," he said, already dialling back. Ivy watched his face change from confusion to concern as Halloran picked up."Where have you been?" Halloran said, loud enough that Ivy caught most of it from the passenger seat. "I've been trying to reach you since midnight.""Dealing with a family emergency. What happened?""A special shareholder meeting's been called. It was filed at eleven last night, with minimum legal notice, and scheduled for nine this morning. A vote of no confidence in your leadership, Xavier. They're asking the board to remove you as CEO."Xavier's knuckles went tight around the phone. "That's not possible without significant shareholder support behind it. Who filed it?""A consortium. Six names, none of them individually significant, but combined they've apparently acquired enough proxy vo
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-09-11
Chapter: Chapter 60They gathered everyone at the penthouse by six that evening, the coffee table covered in printouts of the satellite images, a legal pad filled with Denise's handwriting, Adrian's contacts already coordinating logistics through a separate call in the next room."Legally, we could get a warrant," Denise said, though her tone suggested she already knew the answer wasn't that simple. "But it requires probable cause a judge will actually accept, and everything we have is circumstantial enough that filing today risks a delay we don't have time for. If we're wrong about the timeline, and a judge sits on this for even twelve hours, we lose the entire window.""So the legal route is too slow?" Xavier asked."The legal route is a backup, not a plan. I'll have the paperwork ready to file the moment we have him safely out, in case any of this needs to hold up in court afterwards. Tonight, that's not where our time should go." Denise set down her pen. "You need people who know how to move quietly,
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-09-10
Chapter: Chapter 59Theo called Adrian directly that morning, working through the same list of old security and property contacts he'd used to find Elena, Adrian's name still near the top from the warehouse search.Adrian called Ivy back within the hour."Theo told me about the ultimatum," he said, without preamble. "I want to help find the property myself.""Why?" A pause.“I told you I wanted Charlie to have one true thing to hold onto about me." Adrian's voice was steady, without any of the old performances. "If your father dies because I barely helped, that's not a story I can live with, whatever's left between us."Ivy sat with that for a moment. There was no reassurance in what he'd said, or any attempt to make it easier for her; somehow, that made it harder to dismiss."Tell me what you actually have," she said."Vance Enterprises did business with a company years ago called Coleridge Trust, back when I was still learning the ropes from my father. I never thought much of it at the time. After eve
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-09-10
Chapter: Chapter 58Denise called before either of them had slept more than two hours. She skipped the usual greeting and went straight to the point, her voice clipped with urgency."I had my forensic accountant cross-reference the Ashworth loan amounts against the Meridian Extraction Partners funding records overnight," she said. "I wanted to know if there was a connection beyond timing. Fortunately, there was.""What kind of connection?” Xavier asked, already sitting up, Ivy stirring beside him."The inflated collateral from the Ashworth loans, the fraud itself, generated roughly two million dollars more than the land deal actually required. That excess doesn't show up anywhere in Ashworth's own books. It moved, within weeks, into Meridian Extraction Partners." Denise let that land for a second. "Your father didn't commit fraud purely to save two properties from a takeover, Xavier. Part of that money went directly into securing Whitfield's research. Building a private lab, buying out competing patent
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-09-08
Chapter: Chapter 57They spent the evening at Xavier's office instead of the penthouse, spreading decades of old corporate filings across the conference table, boxes Theo had pulled from storage stacked along the wall."Everything my father ever incorporated should be somewhere in here," Xavier said, cutting open another box. "Most of it is useless. Old subsidiaries, expired trademarks, things that stopped being valuable years before he died. If Damian wants something specific, it's probably buried in one of these.""Start with anything registered around the same time as Ashworth and Northgate," Ivy suggested, already pulling files toward her. "If your father was hiding assets during that same crisis period, there might be more than just those two.""You keep doing this," Xavier said, watching her work. "Finding the pattern before I even see there is one, and I love it.""You're welcome. I spent a few years learning how to notice these little things.” Ivy didn't look up from the folder in front of her. "
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-09-06
Chapter: Chapter 56"What happened?" Xavier asked, scanning her face. "You're a little pale.""Drive first. I'll tell you everything once we're moving."He pulled out into traffic, glancing at her every few seconds, patience visibly costing him something."He knows where my father is," Ivy said finally, staring straight at him. "He admitted it. He also said Richard came to him four days before he disappeared, looking for protection.""And?”"And he wants something in exchange for telling us where." Ivy's hands were clenched in her lap, adrenaline and fury tangled together. "A piece of your father's original company. Something dormant… he called it worthless to anyone who doesn't understand what it's actually worth."Xavier's knuckles went white on the wheel. "What piece?”"He wouldn't say. Just that it's old, sitting untouched, and that getting it from you is apparently worth more to him than money would be." Ivy turned to look at him fully. "He wants me to convince you to sell it to him, Xavier. He's us
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-09-06
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