Alex couldn't feel his legs.
He stood frozen, the video still playing in a loop on Lana's phone. The man in the black hoodie slipped into the stairwell like a shadow, faceless and quiet.
Timestamp: 11:47 p.m.
His mother's building.
Twenty minutes before her usual grocery run.
Then nothing.
She hadn't picked up her phone since that night. Hadn't used her bank card. Hadn't opened the door to the social worker who checked in every month.
It was like she'd vanished.
No… not vanished.
Taken.
Alex handed the phone back to Lana, his voice low and shaking.
"Get every camera feed from that block. Traffic lights, parking lots, anything. I want everything from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m."
Lana nodded and slipped out the door without another word.
Elizabeth was already on the estate's secure line, calling in favors from city officials and private investigators. Ava stood by the window, arms crossed, jaw clenched.
"She's smart," Ava said quietly. "She wouldn't go without a fight."
Alex didn't answer. He couldn't.
Because all he could see in his head was that grainy frame.
And the way his mom had smiled in the photo Marcus left.
Like she'd thought she was safe.
The hours that followed were a blur.
CCTV footage came in piece by piece. A black van parked on the far side of the building. Two men. Hoods up. They waited 13 minutes, then one slipped inside while the other stood watch.
The van left exactly 31 minutes later.
No plates. No logos.
But one of the street cams caught something as the van turned out of the alley.
A symbol.
Barely visible, but Ava spotted it first.
The letters W&T.
Winslow & Tarkin.
Alex's stomach dropped.
"That's it," he whispered. "They took her."
Lana frowned. "But why? Marcus is already finished. What do they want?"
"They want leverage," Ava said. "Or maybe…"
Alex looked up.
"Maybe this has never been just about Marcus."
He pulled every file they'd taken from Marcus's server. Every email, every financial link, every travel record.
And then he saw it.
A payment trail.
Years old.
From Winslow & Tarkin… to a man named Victor Hale.
The name didn't ring a bell at first.
But then he looked deeper.
Victor Hale had been a private consultant. Legal fixer. Shadow broker. Quiet, expensive… and employed once by a man named Daniel Marlowe.
Alex's birth father.
The man who had died before Alex ever knew his name.
Alex's pulse pounded.
"Lana," he said, spinning the screen toward her. "Did you ever run a full dig on my dad?"
She hesitated. "Only surface stuff. He was off the grid most of his life. No public company ownership, no social press. The Consortium sealed most records after he died."
"Unseal them."
"Alex—"
"Now."
Lana didn't argue.
She just started typing.
What came back made Alex's throat go dry.
Daniel Marlowe wasn't just a wealthy investor.
He had once been part of Winslow & Tarkin.
A founding partner.
Before a fallout. Before something went wrong.
The last file they found was a court-sealed document from twenty-seven years ago.
Marked confidential.
Marked buried.
Inside, a statement from Marlowe—testifying against W&T in an embezzlement and human rights investigation overseas.
He'd turned against his own people.
Then disappeared.
Until years later… when he "died" in an accident that looked more and more like a hit.
Alex sat back in his chair, blood draining from his face.
"They didn't just want the company," he whispered. "They wanted to erase the last piece of him."
Ava stared at the screen. "You."
"No. My mother."
The pieces clicked into place like an avalanche.
"She was the only one who knew the whole truth. He told her everything before he died. She was the last loose thread."
"And now she's gone," Ava said softly.
Alex couldn't sit anymore.
He stood, grabbed his jacket, and looked at Lana.
"Track the van. Keep pressing traffic cameras until you lose it. I want a pattern."
"Where are you going?" Ava asked.
"To talk to someone who hates Winslow & Tarkin even more than I do."
Two hours later, Alex stood outside a dusty law office on the far edge of the city.
The name on the door: Harrison Cole.
Once a top federal investigator. Now a disbarred lawyer with a drinking problem.
But ten years ago, he'd led the case that almost brought Winslow & Tarkin to its knees.
Alex knocked once.
No answer.
He knocked again—harder.
After a long pause, the door creaked open.
A tall, gray-haired man blinked at him with bloodshot eyes and a wrinkled shirt.
"You're early," he mumbled.
"We didn't have an appointment."
Harrison frowned. "Then you're late."
Inside, the office was a mess of papers, whiskey bottles, and dust.
Alex laid out the files.
Told him everything.
About Marcus. The takeover. The threats. The connection to his father. His mother.
When he finished, Harrison leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling like it held the answers he'd buried long ago.
"I told your father this would happen," he said quietly. "He thought walking away would keep you safe."
"It didn't."
"No. It didn't."
Alex leaned forward. "Help me."
Harrison looked at him.
"You want to take down Winslow & Tarkin? For real?"
"I want my mother back," Alex said. "And if I have to destroy them to do it—I will."
The older man nodded once.
Then stood.
"I've still got a few friends in ugly places."
That night, Lana called.
"We tracked the van. Industrial district. Near the docks. But that's not the big news."
"What is?"
"I ran voice pattern analysis on the threatening voicemail from earlier… You remember the one from before Howard was fired?"
Alex stiffened. "Yeah."
"It wasn't Marcus."
He gripped the phone tighter. "Then who?"
"I isolated the speech pattern. Cross-referenced it with some leaked audio from a decade ago."
"Lana—"
"It was Victor Hale."
Alex's blood ran cold.
"He's alive?"
"Worse. He's in charge."
A knock came at the door.
Alex turned as one of the estate guards appeared in the doorway, pale-faced.
"There's someone here to see you," he said.
"Who?"
The guard swallowed hard.
"She says… she knows your father."
Alex walked slowly to the front hallway.
There, standing in a black coat, soaked from rain, was an older woman with sharp eyes and a quiet presence.
"Who are you?" he asked.
She handed him a flash drive.
"Someone who tried to protect your family twenty-five years ago."
Alex stared at her.
She leaned in.
"And now I need your help to finish what your father started."