Chapter 32 - Echoes in the Digital Age
While Apex-Montgomery continued its meteoric rise, the remnants of the old-money elites were struggling to adapt to a digital economy that had no patience for lineage or inherited titles. In financial circles, the downfall of the Montgomery dynasty was studied as a cautionary tale of institutional arrogance meeting an unstoppable, self-made force.
Yet, history has a strange way of throwing echoes back across the canyon of time.
Later that afternoon, my private assistant buzzed through the intercom. "Maya, you have a visitor in the ground-floor lobby. A young woman. She insists it's urgent, and she says her name is Clara Hastings."
The name hit the quiet air of the office like a cold draft. Hastings.
Caroline Hastings—the senator's daughter who had been left standing at the altar ten years ago when Ethan’s hidden family blew the wedding apart—had vanished into Europe shortly after the collapse. But Clara... Clara was Caroline’s younger sister, born years later, now a sharp-eyed investigative journalist working for an independent digital publication based in Washington, D.C.
"Send her up," I instructed quietly after a brief pause.
Ten minutes later, the private elevator pinged.
Clara Hastings stepped into the office. She looked remarkably like her older sister—the same striking dark hair, high cheekbones, and sharp, analytical eyes—but there was a distinct lack of aristocratic entitlement in her posture. She wore a simple trench coat, carried a canvas shoulder bag, and walked with the nervous, hurried energy of a reporter hunting a true story.
"Mrs. Montgomery," Clara said, stopping a few feet from my desk. Her voice was steady, though her hands betrayed a slight tremor as she clutched her leather notebook. "Thank you for seeing me on such short notice."
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"You carry a dangerous name, Ms. Hastings," I replied, leaning back in my chair and folding my hands over my desk. "Given how our families last interacted, most people with your last name would cross state lines to avoid me."
Clara gave a faint, bitter smile. "My family built their entire political and social standing on illusions, Mrs. Montgomery. My father spent decades trading favors and burying scandals until your arrival blew the roof off the mansion. I didn't come here to defend them. I came here because I found something in the unsealed federal archives regarding the old Montgomery trust—and you are the only person who can explain it."
