Chapter 2 - The Tracker and the Rain-Soaked Street
The rain was coming down harder now, sweeping across Providence in heavy, grey sheets that blurred the windshields of the afternoon traffic. Corbin drove with one hand on the steering wheel, his knuckles white, while his phone buzzed incessantly against the dashboard.
It was his executive assistant, Miss Gable. “Mr. Stanford? Where are you? The zoning board is on line two—”
He hit the disconnect button and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat.
He didn't go straight to Sterling’s downtown office. Instead, he pulled out of his estate’s gated drive and headed toward the modest, working-class neighborhood on the east side of the city—the address listed under Lianna’s emergency contacts. He wanted to see it with his own eyes. He wanted to see where a woman married to a supposedly wealthy corporate thief ended up living.
Ten minutes later, his SUV idled outside a peeling, pale-yellow triple-decker house divided into cramped apartments. The paint was chipping away from the window frames like dry scabs. A rusted fire escape zig-zagged down the back wall, and a single, sodden cardboard box sat in the narrow entryway.
Lianna’s ancient, dented sedan was parked at the curb, its front bumper held together with silver duct tape.
Corbin cut the engine. He sat in the quiet interior of his luxury vehicle, watching the second-floor window. Through the rain-streaked glass, he caught a fleeting shadow—Lianna holding a tiny bundle against her shoulder, rocking back and forth in a space so small he could see the opposite wall from the street.
Twenty-eight dollars.
He pulled out his phone again, bypassed Miss Gable, and dialed a private number. It rang twice before a raspy, authoritative voice answered.
"Sterling."
May you like
"Marcus," Corbin said, his voice cold enough to freeze the rain on his window. "Drop everything. We need to talk about Julian Vance."
There was a dead, suffocating silence on the other end of the line. The kind of silence that doesn't just indicate surprise—it indicates absolute, unadulterated terror.
