Chapter 7 - The Desperate Hunt
Back in New York, the autumn rain was cold and unforgiving.
Preston sat in a cramped, dark one-bedroom apartment on the outer edge of Queens. The wallpaper was peeling, and the distant sound of subway trains rattled the windows every ten minutes.
His suit was cheap, off-the-rack, and unpressed. His father had cut him off after the stroke he suffered following Hale Tech’s collapse. His mother, Evelyn, spent her days weeping in a modest retirement condo, utterly broken by the humiliation that had swept through their social circle.
Preston sat at a small kitchen table littered with unpaid bills, legal notices, and half-empty whiskey bottles. In front of him was a worn photograph of Maya and Lily laughing on a tire swing in their old backyard.
Every single night for six months, the same words haunted his dreams:
“Take the girls, Lena. I have a son coming now.”
He covered his face with his hands, dry sobs racking his chest. He had traded gold for worthless dust. He had thrown away two beautiful, loving daughters who used to run to the front door to hug him every evening, all for a fraudulent phantom son cooked up by his greedy half-brother and a con woman.
The door knocked.
Preston opened it to reveal a private investigator he had spent his last remaining savings to hire.
"Did you find them?" Preston asked, his voice raw.
The investigator stepped inside and laid a thick manila folder on the table. "It wasn't easy. Lena Hartwell didn't just move; she erased her presence in North America. She’s in London."
Preston pulled out the photographs inside the folder. There was Lena, looking stunning and powerful at a gala. And there were his daughters—Maya playing the violin at an elite private school in Kensington, and Lily smiling at an art gallery.
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"They're thriving," the investigator said flatly. "And Lena Hartwell is currently the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. Next week, she’s attending the Global Founders Expo in Zurich."
Preston gripped the photo of his daughters, a desperate, frantic light igniting in his eyes. "Zurich... I have to go to Zurich. She’ll let me see them. She has to. They’re my blood!"
