All Chapters of The Price of Ashbourne : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Chapter 32Damien was halfway up the stairs when his head of security caught up with him.“Sir.”Damien stopped. The man had a tablet in his hand, his expression serious.“We found the property.”Damien turned. “What property?”“The warehouse where Elena was being held.”For a moment Damien said nothing. Then he walked the last few steps and stopped beside the security chief.“Show me.”The tablet was handed to him. A photograph of an old warehouse appeared on the screen. The building stood behind a rusted fence, surrounded by overgrown grass and broken concrete. It looked abandoned. Damien swiped to the next photograph. His eyes narrowed. The Ashbourne crest was barely visible on one of the walls.“Where did you find this?”“We traced the property records. It belongs to an old company under the Ashbourne dynasty. The company hasn’t operated in years, but the property was never transferred.”Damien stared at the photograph. Someone had taken Elena to an Ashbourne property. His grip ti

Chapter 34“We’ve already gone through it.”Damien didn't look up.“Then go through it again.”His security chief sat across from him, surrounded by old Ashbourne records that had been pulled from storage and spread across the table.“We've checked the corporate records, property files, private trusts, and legal documents. Hart Robinson doesn't appear in any of them.”“Not even once?”“Not officially.”Damien finally raised his eyes.“What does that mean?”“It means his name isn't attached to anything that would explain his connection to your grandfather.”Damien leaned back in his chair.“Then we're looking in the wrong place.”His security chief waited.“Don't search for Hart,” Damien said. “Search for what he was involved in.”They started again.The archive was quiet except for the occasional rustle of paper as they worked through years of Ashbourne history. Old acquisitions, land agreements, private investments, family settlements—most of it had nothing to do with Hart.Then his

Chapter 36Damien returned to the well the following morning.This time, he came alone.He left the car at the edge of the clearing and walked the rest of the way. The woods were quiet, the morning air cool against his face as he followed the narrow path toward the old stone well.The woman was already there.She sat on a low stone beside the well, sorting through a basket of apples. She looked up when she heard him approach but didn't seem surprised.“You came back.”“You told me to.”A faint smile touched her lips.“I wasn't sure you would listen.”“I don't usually.”The smile disappeared.She studied him for a moment before setting the basket aside.“You look like Hart.”Damien stopped.“What did you say?”“Your face. Around the eyes.”He hadn't expected that.“What did you know about him?”The woman looked toward the well.“More than I should have. Less than I needed to.”Damien came closer.“You said yesterday that Hart used to come here.”“He did.”“How often?”“Only when he nee

Chapter 38Austin was reading the same paragraph for the third time when his phone vibrated across the desk. He glanced down at the screen.**He went to the well.**His thumb stilled against the edge of the page. For a moment he didn’t move. Then he closed the file in front of him and reached for the phone.**How do you know?**The reply came almost at once.**We followed him. He stayed there for forty-two minutes.**Austin leaned back in his chair, gaze shifting toward the windows that overlooked the city. Rain had begun sometime during the meeting he’d just finished, leaving the glass streaked and the skyline blurred behind it.The well. Of all the places Damien could have found, he’d found that one.Austin pressed the call button. The man answered on the first ring.“What happened?”“He went alone.”“Damien?”“Yes.”Austin’s fingers tapped once against the armrest. “Where was security?”“Waiting by the road. He didn’t take them with him.”“Why?”“We don’t know.”That sounded like D

Chapter 40Damien’s phone had not stopped vibrating since sunrise. Each alert arrived with the same thin, brittle hope, and each conversation ended the same way: nothing confirmed, nothing close enough to matter. The screen lit up again as he stood at the tall windows of his office, the city spread below him in hard morning light. He ignored the latest notification for a moment and simply watched the traffic crawl along the distant arteries of DeVille, as if the pattern of cars might somehow reveal where she had gone.Behind him, Marcus worked through the newest stack of reports with the quiet efficiency of a man who had already accepted that most of them would lead nowhere. The sound of paper turning and the occasional low click of a tablet filled the room.“The southern routes are clear,” Marcus said at last. “We’ve checked the major bus terminals, the private transport companies that will talk to us, and every toll camera we can access without raising flags. Nothing we can put a nam