A Man Saved a Female CEO’s Life One Night—Then Walked Into Her Company for an Interview the Very Next Morning
Chapter 7
Victoria wanted Ethan to resign.
Not because she distrusted him.
Because she trusted him too much.
“If someone manipulated your interview,” she said, “you are in danger.”
“So are you.”
“I have security.”
“Security failed the night you were attacked.”
She stared at him.
He wasn’t wrong.
Victoria sat behind her desk.
“What would you do?”
“If I quit, whoever planned this wins.”
“Maybe staying is exactly what they want.”
Ethan thought about it.
“Then let’s find out why.”
Victoria looked at him for a long moment.
“You’re stubborn.”
“So I’ve been told.”
She smiled.
Then she agreed.
They continued secretly investigating.
The first breakthrough came from the recruitment system.
An administrator found that Ethan’s application had been accessed twelve times before his interview.
All by an account belonging to someone in executive management.
The account belonged to Thomas Avery.
Victoria stared at the screen.
“So he did arrange the interview.”
Ethan shook his head.
“Maybe.”
“That’s enough.”
“Not yet.”
“Ethan.”
“If Thomas wanted to kill you, why bring me here?”
Victoria didn’t answer.
Ethan pointed to the access records.
“He wanted me here for a reason.”
They searched Thomas’s financial records.
Nothing.
His accounts were clean.
Too clean.
Then Ethan noticed something.
Thomas had paid off a mortgage six years earlier.
The payment came from an offshore company.
Victoria recognized the company.
“That’s one of our old suppliers.”
“Exactly.”
They traced the money.
It led to a shell corporation.
Then another.
Finally, they reached a private investment fund.
The beneficiary was not Thomas.
It was someone named Daniel Halston.
Victoria’s younger brother.
She went completely still.
“Daniel died five years ago.”
Ethan looked at her.
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“Almost nobody does.”
“Why?”
“He was involved in drugs. He disappeared after our father died.”
Victoria’s voice shook.
“The police believed he overdosed.”
“But?”
“We never found his body.”
Ethan stared at the documents.
“Then Daniel may be alive.”
Victoria’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
A man’s voice spoke.
“You’re looking in the wrong direction, Victoria.”
Her face went pale.
“Who is this?”
“You should ask your new friend why his father worked for ours.”
Ethan froze.
The caller continued.
“Some debts survive generations.”
Then the line went dead.
Victoria looked at Ethan.
“What did he mean?”
Ethan shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
But that night, Ethan went home and searched his father’s old belongings.
His father had died when Ethan was nineteen.
There wasn’t much left.
A few photographs.
A watch.
Old employment records.
Then Ethan found a photograph he had never seen before.
His father stood beside three men.
One was Victoria’s father.
Another was Thomas Avery.
And the third man was Daniel Halston.
On the back was a handwritten note.
Chicago, 2008. Project Phoenix.
Ethan stared at the photograph.
His father had never mentioned Halston Technologies.
Never mentioned Victoria’s family.
Never mentioned Project Phoenix.
Until now.
Ethan suddenly realized his job interview wasn’t the beginning of the story.
It was the continuation of something that had started eighteen years earlier.
