LOGINMark's Pov "Camera footage from a building on her route. A van pulled up next to her."My chest tightened. "And?""She didn't walk away from it."My hand clenched into a fist. "Where? Send me the location.""I'm sending it now."My phone buzzed with an address. I got back into the car and drove. Faster than before. I didn't care about traffic. I didn't care about lights. I didn't care about anything except getting there."Stay on the line," I said."I'm here.""Tell me what you see in the footage.""Two men," Anthony said. "They grabbed her from the sidewalk. She fought. She tried to pull away. She kicked. She tried to scream."Of course she did."Then what?""They forced her into the van. One of them covered her mouth. The other pushed her inside. The door closed. The van drove off."My jaw tightened. "Plate number?""Fake. We already ran it. Doesn't exist.""Of course.""We're tracking the direction. The van headed east out of the city. We lost it for a few minutes in a residential
Mark's POVI called her as soon as I stepped out of the meeting. The door had barely closed behind me before my phone was at my ear. The meeting had run long, too long, filled with pointless discussions about things that didn't matter. I had been distracted the entire time, thinking about her, about everything that had happened, about the look on her face when I left.The phone rang.No answer.I frowned and pulled the phone away from my ear, checking the screen like that would change something. Maybe she was in the shower. Maybe her phone was on silent. Maybe she had stepped away for a moment.I called again.It rang longer this time. Four rings. Five. Six.Still nothing.That wasn't normal. Teresa always answered. If she couldn't, she sent a message. Something short. Something quick. A text. A voice note. Anything to let me know she was okay.I ended the call and sent a text.Where are you?I waited. One second. Five. Ten.No reply.I started walking faster toward the car. My footst
Teresa's POV I tried to push them away. My arms were pinned. I tried to kick. My legs were held.My vision blurred. The street noise faded. The people. The cars. Everything.My arms dropped. My legs stopped moving.The last thing I felt was the grip tightening around me, pulling me into the van, the door sliding shut.Then nothing.---I woke up slowly.The first thing I noticed was the pain. My head throbbed, a deep ache behind my eyes. My jaw hurt. My wrists burned.The second thing I noticed was the cold. Concrete beneath me. Air that smelled like dust and rust and something else I couldn't name.For a second, I didn't move. I didn't open my eyes. I just listened.Silence. Not complete silence. There was a hum, maybe a generator. The distant sound of wind. Footsteps somewhere nearby.Then I opened my eyes.Dim light. A single bulb hanging from the ceiling above me, casting harsh shadows. Concrete walls. Gray and rough. A concrete floor. Cold and hard.I was sitting against somethi
Nathan's POV "Understood.""Clean. No witnesses.""Always."I ended the call.Then I sat back in my chair.This wasn't panic. I didn't panic. Panic was for people who didn't have options. I had options. I had resources. I had people. Melinda had made a move. Now I would make mine.I thought about the situation clearly, coldly. Auditors. Evidence. Witnesses. If the secretary testified, that would complicate things. If Melinda pushed further, that would make everything worse. But both of them were reacting. They weren't the cause. They were symptoms.The cause was Teresa.She had pushed this forward. She had made it real. She had made it visible. She had taken her story and she had told it, and that had started a chain reaction that was now threatening everything I had built.And she needed to be removed from the situation.Not permanently. Not yet. Just enough to stop the chain. Just enough to make them pause. Just enough to buy me time to handle the rest.I picked up my phone and cal
Nathan's POVThe call came in the middle of the afternoon.I almost ignored it. I was reviewing a report at my desk, already irritated by small inconsistencies I hadn't had time to deal with. Numbers that didn't add up. Expenses that had been miscategorized. Small things that added up to larger problems. The number on the screen was familiar. My father. I picked it up."Yes?"His voice was sharp. Impatient. The kind of tone he used when he had been waiting too long for answers."What is going on with your accounts?"I didn't respond immediately. My mind shifted gears, moving from the report in front of me to whatever had triggered this call."What do you mean?""Don't play games with me." His voice was harder now. "I don't have time for it.""I'm not playing games." I leaned back slightly in my chair. "I don't know what you're talking about.""There are auditors in your office."That made me sit up straight. My hand tightened on the phone."What?""They're going through everything. Fi
Melinda's Pov Then I went back to the secretary.This time, I didn't wait for her to break. I found her alone in a small office on the third floor, filing papers, her back to the door.She looked up when I entered. Her eyes widened."Mrs. Hale," she said quickly."Close the door."She hesitated. Her hands stilled on the papers."Now."She stood up and closed the door. Her hands were shaking again. I could see it, the fine tremor in her fingers.I walked closer. "I know something is wrong."She froze."I can't help you if you don't tell me," I said."I don't—""Stop." My voice was firm but not harsh. "I'm not asking. I'm telling you. Something is wrong. And I need to know what it is."Silence. Her eyes filled with tears immediately, spilling down her cheeks."I know," I said softly. "You don't have to pretend with me."She shook her head, her lips trembling. "I can't. If he finds out—""He won't.""You don't know that.""I do." I stepped closer. "I'm not going to let him hurt you anym
Teresa's POV.I said nothing, my throat tight, unable to form words.“You don’t trust me yet.” His tone was unreadable, devoid of emotion, a cool assessment.I licked my lips, the dryness persistent. “I... don’t know what this is.”“This is a test,” he said simply, his voice matter-of-fact, as if h
Teresa's POV I tried to keep my face neutral, forcing my features into an unreadable mask, like the red dress wasn't hugging every part of me that ached for his attention, for just one sustained glance. Like I hadn’t stood in front of my mirror shaking while Mariana zipped me up, half convinced I
Teresa's POV The moment I stepped into his office, the air felt thick, heavy with an unspoken tension. Mark didn’t even look up from his laptop. His fingers continued to fly over the keyboard, the soft, rhythmic clicking the only sound in the room. He didn’t acknowledge my entrance, didn’t offer a
Teresa's POV I sat curled up on the far end of the couch, my legs tucked under me, while I tried to pretend that the flickering movie Mariana had picked was actually holding my attention. It wasn’t, not even close. My mind was not on the or on anything else. It was on Mark and had replayed the ki







