Chapter 9
"Marcus?" Thomas repeated, his fair skin paling as the realization hit him. "Alex, Marcus is your right-hand man. He oversees all the security protocols for your travel. He knows your schedule down to the minute."
"He orchestrated this," Alexander said, standing up and gently setting Sophia back onto the sofa. The rage inside him had transformed into a razor-sharp, terrifying focus. "Victoria thought she was using Richard Vance to control the company. But Richard and Marcus were using Victoria."
"They set you up to find her," Thomas deduced, his legal mind working rapidly. "But why? If they wanted to keep control of the trust, why put Sophia directly in your path?"
"Because of the clause," Alexander replied, walking over to his briefcase and pulling out his encrypted laptop. "If I find my daughter abused and starved, what am I going to do? I’m going to go to war. I’m going to destroy my mother, cause a massive public scandal, and tear the Sterling board apart."
"And while you are distracted by the family war," Thomas finished, his eyes widening in horror, "Marcus uses his executive power to initiate a hostile takeover. With the stock plummeting from Victoria's arrest, Marcus and Richard could buy up the company for pennies."
Alexander typed furiously on his keyboard, pulling up the hotel's security grid. As the CEO of Sterling Enterprises, he had backdoor access to the security networks of every hotel chain his company owned—including this one.
"They played my mother like a fiddle," Alexander growled, scanning the camera feeds from the alleyway earlier that evening. "And they tried to use my daughter's suffering as the catalyst."
He found the footage. At 7:15 PM, a black town car pulled into the service alley. The passenger door opened, and a man wearing a dark trench coat pushed a small, terrified Sophia out onto the pavement. The man didn't show his face, but as he closed the door, the glare of the streetlight caught a flash of gold and red on his thumb.
"There it is," Alexander pointed at the screen. "Marcus."
"What do we do?" Thomas asked, reaching into his jacket to check his concealed weapon. "If Marcus knows you found her, he knows the clock is ticking on his takeover. He won't just sit back and wait for the police to connect the dots."
"We can't trust the local police," Alexander stated coldly. "If Marcus and Richard have the capital to buy Sterling Enterprises, they have the capital to buy the cops. We need to get Sophia to the secure compound in the Hamptons. My private security team there answers only to me."
Alexander closed his laptop and turned back to his daughter. "Sophia, we are going to go on a trip now. It's going to be an adventure, okay?"
Sophia nodded bravely, clutching the lapels of her oversized robe. "Are the bad men going to follow us?"
"I am not going to let them anywhere near you," Alexander promised, his voice a vow of absolute, lethal protection.
He looked at Thomas. "Call the pilot. Have the chopper spun up on the roof. We aren't taking the cars."
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But before Thomas could pull out his phone, the lights in the penthouse suite abruptly flickered and died. The room was plunged into darkness, save for the faint glow of the city lights outside the massive windows.
A second later, the heavy electronic locks on the penthouse doors clicked loudly, disengaging.
