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Chapter 38 You Don't Get to Ask
publish date:
2026-10-13 22:40:03
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Chasing the Pride of Alessi Chapter 45 With Interest
|•Marin• |The brass plate beside my door said MARIN ALESSI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BRAND STRATEGY. I had asked for Alessi. The plate was already up when I arrived.The title matched the one I had held in the Vane tower. The department didn't. It had its own staff and its own say over the work, and nobody in it took orders from the executive floor.The building was the one Alfred called the Sibling Branch. It stood on the east side of the city, a narrow tower of glass with nine floors, a forty-minute drive from the sixty floors of the Vane Enterprises tower. Vane Enterprises owned it, and the group's name was on the deed. The family had set it up to run on its own, and it answered to the group for two things only, money and law. Its work was luxury. It designed the look and voice of high-end brands and hosted the foreign investors whose dinners and tours decide whether a fund trusts a company and signs.Weston had never worked a day on those nine floors. That was why I had asked Alfred f
Chasing the Pride of Alessi Chapter 44 The Other Side of the Gate
Weston━━❖━━I rang her four times between the tower and the bridge.The first call rang out. The second rang until it went to a recording. By the third, the phone was off, and a voice said the number could not be reached. I tried a fourth time at a red light, out of habit more than hope, then put the phone on the seat and drove the rest of the way with both hands.I had told myself I would leave her alone tonight. Roland had said she needed rest, and the screen on my desk had said she was behind a gate that wasn't mine. I lasted until nine.I drove myself. I wanted no driver and no detail, and no one who would have to describe my face to somebody later. The only car I could take without anyone asking questions was the dark gray one I'd bought on a whim and never used. It handled the road well. I didn't.The estate ran behind a stone wall for half a mile along the north shore of the lake, the east gate at the far end of it, where the staff log had placed her at 8:19. At the end of the
Chasing the Pride of Alessi Chapter 43 Under His Roof
|•Marin• |I had argued with Damien outside the hospital, first about a hotel, then about my mother's house, and I lost both once I worked out what each one meant. A hotel meant a desk clerk, a name in a register, and a photographer who would know my face by midnight. My mother's house meant my mother, who would take one look at me and understand everything, and cry, and I had no strength left to watch that tonight."The pavilion has a gate," he'd said back in the hospital room, while Alfred stood by the bed gathering his cane. "I keep a list of who's allowed through it. Tonight you'd be the only name on it."Alfred kept his eyes on his cane while Damien spoke. Then he looked at me and said, "Good." To Damien he said, "Drive carefully, and call Roland yourself if anything changes before morning." He asked nothing about a married woman spending the night in another man's house. That afternoon he had signed the papers ending that marriage, and he saw no reason to mind what came after.S
Chasing the Pride of Alessi Chapter 42 Marin Alessi
Weston━━❖━━I had been sitting across from an old man in a diner outside the city since six that morning, with my detail at the curb and two men by the door, and my phone had stayed off in my pocket the whole time.He wasn't hard to find once Gideon knew where to look. Dispatch records for casual labor, outside the estate's official roster. The hangar called in overflow hands through a contractor when its own crew was short, and nobody back then had bothered logging those names properly. That's why the service page was filed with the contractor's records instead of the aircraft's.He remembered the night the moment I gave him the date. His hand stopped on his coffee cup."Called in to cover for a guy out sick. Did the standard check, fueled her up, signed the log like I always did. Heard about the crash on the radio that morning. I sat in my truck outside the house a good while before I went in." He turned the cup a quarter turn on the saucer. "I kept waiting for somebody to come ask
Chasing the Pride of Alessi Chapter 41 Leaving Vane
The pen was heavier than it looked. I held it over the line under Alfred's name and signed.My hand shook less than I expected. I had braced for something enormous. What I felt was closer to finishing a form at the DMV. Necessary, and a little anticlimactic. Mostly I felt tired, down to the bone."Grandpa." My voice cracked on it, and I squeezed his hand.Alfred looked at my signature, then at me."The Vane name has survived worse than a divorce. I have spent sixty years protecting it. I won't sacrifice you and that child to keep it tidy. If this family can't survive being on the wrong side of this, it wasn't worth much to begin with."My throat tightened. I had been waiting for someone to tell me what I owed. He had put the entire weight of the name on one side and chosen me.I pressed my lips together and nodded.He closed the folder. "Griggs."A man by the door stepped forward."Take this to my grandson's desk at the tower. Put it in his hand yourself. If he's in a meeting, wait ou
Chasing the Pride of Alessi Chapter 40 Empty Chair
|•Marin• |Dr. Roland had written twenty minutes at the top of my instructions that morning and underlined it twice. When I asked what would happen if I went over, he said he expected me to follow his instructions.Today was the launch of our joint venture with the Tokyo consortium, our first foothold in Asian logistics. The consortium's chairman had flown in for the event, and from the wings I could see him in the front row beside Hale.Mr. Hayashi had spent every previous call asking questions that exposed the gaps in a proposal. He had come to judge the work for himself, and he watched the stage accordingly.Beside Hale sat an empty chair with a place card bearing two words: W. VANE.I read it twice. Hale caught my eye across the hall and gave a small shrug. He had no explanation for Weston's absence.Damien stood at the side of the stage with a bottle of water. He followed my gaze to the empty chair."Want me to take the first questions if you need a break?" he asked."You'll ruin
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