CHAPTER 2 — Someone Inside My Empire Was Watching
The message vanished before anyone else seemed to notice it.
WE KNOW THEY FOUND YOU.
For a heartbeat, I wondered if grief had finally broken something inside my mind.
Then the security monitor returned to the normal camera feed.
Reception.
Elevators.
Lobby entrance.
Nothing unusual.
But my instincts—the instincts that had kept Sterling Technologies alive through hostile takeovers, cyberattacks, and billion-dollar lawsuits—were screaming.
Someone had just spoken to me.
Not through a phone.
Not through an email.
Through my own building.
Inside the fortress I had spent fifteen years creating.
I folded Emily's letter without letting the boys see my hands shaking.
Lucas looked up at me with cautious hope.
"Did Mama write everything?"
I forced myself to smile.
"I've only read part of it."
"She said you'd believe her handwriting."
My heart tightened.
Emily had known me too well.
Even after eight years.
I stood slowly.
"Margaret."
My assistant hurried over immediately.
Her face had turned pale.
"Yes, Mr. Sterling?"
"Lock down the building."
She blinked.
"The entire building?"
"No one enters."
"No one leaves."
"And I want every security recording from the last forty-eight hours."
The security director nearby frowned.
"Sir, is there a threat?"
I looked directly into his eyes.
"I don't know yet."
"But if there is..."
"It already got inside."
The cheerful atmosphere in the lobby disappeared instantly.
Security radios crackled.
Elevator access shut down.
Employees exchanged nervous glances.
Lucas grabbed my hand.
His fingers were tiny.
Cold.
"Are we in trouble?"
I looked down at him.
For reasons I couldn't explain, the simple feeling of his hand inside mine made something ancient awaken inside me.
Protection.
The instinct arrived before logic.
"No."
I lied.
"You're safe."
Noah quietly whispered,
"Mama always says grown-ups say we're safe when they don't know."
The words struck harder than any accusation.
Emily had taught them that.
Emily...
Where was she?
I turned another page of her letter.
Alexander...
Please don't try calling me.
By the time you read this, my phone will already be gone.
If I'm lucky, I'll still be alive.
My breathing stopped.
Alive?
Why would Emily write that?
I kept reading.
You deserve the truth.
But if I tell you everything here, this letter becomes dangerous.
Trust no one who worked for Sterling before eight years ago.
I read the sentence again.
Then a third time.
Trust...
No one.
Eight years ago.
That wasn't random.
Eight years ago was exactly when Emily disappeared.
Exactly when she supposedly ended our relationship.
Exactly when everything fell apart.
Margaret noticed my expression.
"What happened?"
I handed her the letter.
She only reached the second paragraph before looking up.
"Oh my God..."
I lowered my voice.
"I need a complete employee list."
"Everyone hired before Emily disappeared."
"Everyone."
Margaret nodded immediately.
"I'll have Human Resources compile it."
"No."
I interrupted.
"Not HR."
She understood instantly.
If someone inside my company was involved...
Using HR would warn them.
"I'll do it myself," she whispered.
Meanwhile, Lucas and Noah had wandered toward the enormous Christmas tree still standing in the lobby despite January being only a few days old.
Noah touched one of the silver ornaments.
"So pretty."
Lucas smiled.
"Mama always wanted a tree this big."
I walked toward them.
"When did you last see your mother?"
The twins exchanged a nervous look.
It wasn't the look of children trying to lie.
It was the look of children deciding whether they were allowed to answer.
Finally Lucas spoke.
"Yesterday morning."
"What happened?"
"She woke us before sunrise."
Noah continued.
"She packed our backpacks."
Lucas nodded.
"She kept looking out the window."
"Were you hiding?"
Both boys became silent.
Then Noah whispered something so softly I almost missed it.
"We've always been hiding."
The lobby suddenly felt colder.
I crouched again.
"From who?"
Lucas looked toward the revolving doors.
"Asking their name makes them stronger."
Emily had told them that.
Children don't invent sentences like that.
Someone had been chasing them for years.
"Did your mother say where she was going?"
Both boys shook their heads.
"She cried."
Lucas answered.
"She hugged us for a long time."
Noah added,
"She said Daddy would protect us now."
His voice cracked.
"She kissed us..."
"...like she thought it might be the last time."
I closed my eyes.
Emily had known.
She knew something terrible was coming.
Then Lucas opened his backpack.
"I almost forgot."
"There was another thing."
He pulled out a small stuffed fox.
Old.
Worn.
One button eye missing.
He handed it to me.
"Mama said you'd understand."
At first...
I didn't.
Then I turned it over.
Stitched into the bottom of the fox's paw were tiny initials.
A + E
Alexander.
Emily.
I felt the room spin.
I'd won that stuffed fox for her at a county fair ten years earlier.
We had been twenty-five.
Too young.
Hopelessly in love.
She had laughed because I missed every target before finally winning the smallest prize.
"You'll probably become a billionaire one day," she'd teased.
"But you'll always be terrible at carnival games."
She'd slept with that fox beside her for years.
Which meant...
She had kept it.
All this time.
She never stopped loving me.
Then why did she disappear?
Why let me believe she'd abandoned me?
The answer had to be in the rest of the letter.
I unfolded another page.
The next paragraph hit harder than everything before it.
Alexander...
I never chose to leave you.
My heart stopped.
Someone made the choice for both of us.
Before I could read another word—
"Sir!"
One of the security officers sprinted across the lobby.
His face was white.
"We found something."
"What?"
"Parking Garage Level Three."
"What is it?"
He swallowed.
"A woman was caught on one of the cameras this morning."
He handed me a tablet.
The footage showed a hooded woman walking beside the twins.
She stopped beside a concrete pillar.
Knelt.
Hugged both boys tightly.
Then disappeared behind a parked delivery van.
The boys walked toward the elevator alone.
But the woman...
Never came back into view.
I stared at the screen.
Zoomed in.
Froze the image.
Although her face was partly hidden...
I'd know that posture anywhere.
Emily.
She had brought our sons here herself.
Then vanished.
The timestamp made my stomach drop.
8:41 a.m.
Exactly thirty-six minutes before the twins reached my lobby.
"Search the entire garage," I ordered.
"Every level."
"Every stairwell."
"Every vehicle."
The officer hesitated.
"We already did."
"And?"
His voice barely rose above a whisper.
"We found blood."
Silence swallowed the lobby.
"How much?"
"Enough to suggest..."
He couldn't finish.
Lucas looked up at me.
"In trouble?"
I forced a smile that felt like glass cutting my face.
"No."
But deep inside...
I already feared the truth.
Emily hadn't disappeared.
Someone had taken her.
Again.
And whoever they were...
May you like
Had left just enough blood behind to send me a message.
End of Chapter 2..
