Chapter 19 - The Ghost from the PastTwo weeks into our London residency, a heavy knock echoed against my private office door just as I was reviewing our Q3 liquidity projections.
Maya pushed the door open, her expression tight and professional, though a subtle shadow of annoyance flickered across her features.
“Eleanor, you have an unannounced visitor in the ground-floor reception lobby. Security tried to turn him away, but he claims he has vital information regarding your former husband’s corporate network in Europe.”
I didn’t look up from my iPad. “Did he give a name?”
“Arthur Hayes,” Maya said quietly.
My pen stopped moving across the digital notepad. Arthur. David’s father. The same man who had sat in my favorite leather armchair on the first day of his son's fake Tokyo setup, barking orders for filtered ice water and demanding I fulfill my duties as a proper daughter-in-law.
“Bring him up,” I said coldly. “Let’s see what an octogenarian con artist wants with an international venture capital firm.”
Ten minutes later, the glass door slid open, and Arthur stepped inside.
The change in him was staggering. The arrogant, booming patriarch who had once tried to intimidate me in my own living room was completely gone. His posture was hunched, his tweed suit hung loosely off his shrunken frame, and his hands trembled slightly as he clutched a worn leather briefcase to his chest. He looked every bit like a man who had lost his home, his status, and his delusions of grandeur.
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“Eleanor,” Arthur croaked, his voice cracking as he stopped a few feet from my desk. He didn't dare sit down without an invitation.
“Arthur,” I replied, leaning back in my ergonomic leather chair and steepling my fingers. “You’ve traveled quite a long way from your New Jersey retirement community to the financial heart of London. Did the Wi-Fi in the lobby finally give out?”
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