Chapter 15 - The Room That Time Forgot
The beam of my flashlight swept across a room frozen in 1998. Filing cabinets lined the walls, covered in a thick blanket of gray dust. In the center of the room sat an old wooden desk, upon which rested a reel-to-reel tape recorder and a stack of leather-bound journals bearing my mother’s name.
I walked over to the desk, my heart hammering against my ribs. I pressed the play button on the recorder. A soft hiss of magnetic tape filled the silent vault, followed by my mother’s voice—clear, steady, and hauntingly alive.
"If you are listening to this, Madison, it means Karen and the board succeeded in silencing me, and you have found your way through the labyrinth. Doyle Meridian was never a legitimate financial firm; it was a front created to launder offshore intelligence funds during the late eighties. Stephen wasn't assigned to you by chance, darling. He was planted by Vanguard to ensure our bloodline never reclaimed the controlling shares."
The tape clicked off, leaving a ringing silence in the underground vault.
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"They planted him," I whispered, the final piece of the terrifying puzzle snapping into place. Stephen wasn't just an abusive husband; he was a corporate sleeper agent whose entire life history had been fabricated by Vanguard Holdings to keep me neutralized.
"Which means Vanguard knows we're here," Dante said sharply, his hand dropping to his sidearm as a distant metallic echo bounced down the concrete corridor behind us.
