Chapter 4 - The Austin Connection
The burner phone felt light and wrong in my palm, like a toy that could actually kill me. I dialed Sarah’s number from memory, my thumb trembling against the glass screen.
It rang twice before a sharp, panicked voice answered. "Emily? Where are you? The police are here!"
I bolted upright from the sofa. "The police? Sarah, what are you talking about?"
"They're at my apartment," Sarah whispered frantically, her voice muffled as if she were hiding in a closet. "Two detectives. They said they're looking into an amber alert flag on Lily. They said you abducted her from your home in Austin."
My blood ran instantly cold. "Abducted? That's insane! Ryan knows I took Lily—we talked about me going to Chicago for a few days to stay with you until we figured things out!"
"He must have filed an emergency custody injunction this morning," Noah said, having heard my end of the conversation. He gestured sharply to Marcus, who immediately began typing on a secure tablet. "It’s a classic pressure tactic. Force you into a legal corner so you have to surface."
"Sarah, listen to me," I said into the phone, trying to keep my voice from cracking. "Do not let them into your apartment without a warrant. I am safe, and Lily is right here with me. I am with..." I paused, looking up at Noah. "I am with someone who can protect us."
"Who are you with, Em? Who is helping you?"
Before I could answer, a loud crash echoed through the speaker on Sarah's end, followed by a muffled shout.
"Sarah? Sarah!"
"I'm here, I'm here—they're forcing the door—" The line went dead with a harsh, electronic screech.
"Marcus!" Noah barked, abandoning all pretense of calm. "Get a feed on Sarah’s address on Belmont Avenue. Now."
"Working on it, sir," Marcus said, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "Bypassing municipal traffic cams... got it. Live feed coming up on main."
The wall monitor flickered, replacing the financial charts with a live overhead view of a brick apartment building on Chicago’s North Side. A marked Chicago Police cruiser was parked at the curb, its lights flashing silently against the wet pavement. But standing beside the cruiser wasn't a uniformed officer. It was a man in an expensive gray suit—the same man I had seen stepping out of a black SUV outside my apartment building in Austin the morning I left.
"That's not local police," I gasped, pointing a shaking finger at the screen. "That’s Arthur Vance."
Noah stopped dead. "You know him?"
"He's Vanguard Capital's chief legal counsel," I said, the memory flooding back from the darkest days of my father's lawsuit. "He’s the man who looked my father in the eye across a courtroom table and told him he was legally and financially nonexistent."
"Vance isn't just a lawyer," Noah said, his voice turning cold as ice. "He’s the architect of every hostile acquisition Vanguard has run in the Midwest for a decade. And if he’s in Chicago personally..."
"He’s not here for a custody dispute," Marcus interrupted, his eyes wide as he stared at a secondary data stream. "Sir... look at the financial routing on the Shelton Trust. The accounts didn't just vest today. Someone just authorized an emergency asset transfer of forty million dollars out of escrow."
I stared at Marcus, my breath catching in my throat. "Forty million?"
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"And the authorization code," Marcus added, his voice dropping to a whisper, "was entered from an IP address originating right here inside this building."
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