Chapter 3 - The Billionaire’s InvestigationAn hour later, Silas stepped out of the café into the biting Manhattan wind, holding Mave’s small, gloveless hand in his warm palm.
Waiting at the curb was a sleek, black Rolls-Royce Phantom. Marcus Vance, Silas’s fiercely loyal head of security, stepped out from the driver’s side and hurried to open the rear door, shielding the falling snow with an umbrella.
Marcus froze when he saw the six-year-old girl standing beside his boss.
“Mr. Mercer...?” Marcus started, his eyes widening in confusion. “Sir, who is this?”
“Get in, Marcus,” Silas commanded smoothly, lifting Mave safely into the leather-lined interior of the car and wrapping a cashmere lap blanket around her shivering shoulders.
Once inside the warm, quiet vehicle, Silas sat beside Mave while Marcus slid into the driver’s seat, glancing back through the rearview mirror with a questioning frown.
“Boss, the board meeting at Mercer Global is in twenty minutes. And the district attorney is waiting—”
“Cancel the meetings,” Silas interrupted coldly, his gaze fixed on the snow-covered street outside.
Marcus turned around fully in his seat, shocked. “Cancel? Sir, the acquisition of the European tech shares—” can wait,” Silas repeated, his voice dropping into a register of absolute authority. “Right now, we have a more important investigation.”
Marcus blinked. “Investigation into what?”
Silas reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, bent flower stem—the crushed violet he had picked up off the pavement outside Leerti. He placed it carefully on the center console.
“Find out who those four men were outside the restaurant tonight,” Silas ordered, his dark eyes hardening into cold steel. “Check the security cameras from Leerti. Run facial recognition. I want their names, their addresses, their bank accounts, and every business they own by midnight.”
Marcus stared at the crushed flower, then at Silas’s grim expression. As the head of security for one of the most powerful young billionaires in the city, Marcus knew that look. It was the look Silas wore before destroying an enemy.
“Understood, Boss,” Marcus nodded grimly. “And the child?”
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Silas looked down at Mave. She had fallen fast asleep against his arm, exhausted by the cold, the hunger, and the terror of the evening, her tiny fingers tightly clutching the fifty-dollar bill.
“She stays with me,” Silas said softly.
