Chapter 5 - The First Lie
Victor replayed the recording.
Celeste was placed in your path.
The sentence hurt more than the fractured bones.
Elias explained that Vale Meridian’s earliest security architecture had been developed with a classified fraud-detection platform capable of identifying hidden financial networks across borders.
Victor had created the system to catch thieves.
Someone else wanted to use it to hide them.
Twenty-one years ago, an organized financial syndicate began trying to penetrate Vale Meridian. Conventional bribery failed. Cyberattacks failed.
So they chose patience.
They placed a vulnerable teenager near Victor.
Not as an operative.
As an investment.
“She was fourteen,” Lena said. “You think Celeste planned this?”
Victor shook his head.
“No child plans twenty years ahead.”
Elias confirmed it.
Celeste had not known.
Someone had manipulated the circumstances that put her behind that diner.
Someone had expected Victor’s compassion to do the rest.
The recording continued.
“Nora Crane was one of the intermediaries.”
Victor’s hands tightened.
Julian’s mother.
The connection between Celeste and Julian had therefore not begun with romance.
Their families had intersected before Victor ever knew either of them.
Then the video glitched.
A loud metallic noise came from outside the storage unit.
Malik moved toward the door.
Lena stopped him.
Footsteps.
Victor shut the laptop.
Three figures entered the corridor.
One was Agent Reed.
Lena immediately stepped between him and Victor.
Reed raised both hands.
“If I wanted him dead, I wouldn’t have come alone.”
Victor looked behind him.
“You didn’t.”
A woman stepped from the shadows.
Celeste.
Victor’s breath stopped.
She looked nothing like the woman at the mansion.
Her white suit was stained. Her hair was wet. Fear had replaced arrogance.
Lena reached for her phone.
Celeste spoke first.
“Dad, don’t.”
Victor stared at her.
“You forfeited that word at the door.”
Her eyes flickered with pain.
Then she tossed a phone onto the floor.
A video was playing.
Julian stood inside the Vale mansion with Nora.
Nora struck Celeste across the face.
“You were supposed to get the key before he disappeared.”
Celeste looked toward Victor.
“Julian turned on me.”
Victor almost laughed.
“And that makes you innocent?”
“No.”
For once, she did not defend herself.
“I stole from you. I forged the power of attorney. I hurt you.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“You drugged me.”
Celeste’s face changed.
“No.”
“You changed my medication.”
“I changed paperwork. I moved money. But I never touched your medicine.”
Victor glanced at Reed.
The agent said nothing.
Celeste stepped closer.
“I thought you were pretending to be weaker than you were. Julian told me you were manipulating everyone.”
Victor looked at the surveillance shelves.
“If not you, who poisoned me?”
Celeste began crying.
“I found the medical payments tonight.”
She handed him a printed transfer record.
The recipient was not Julian.
Not Nora.
May you like
Not Celeste.
It was Lena Brooks.
