Chapter 32 Chapter 32
I don't remember driving home. The car moved, yes, but I don't remember driving it. My hands gripped the wheels, my feet operated the pedals, but something essential, something free drove me.
When I got to the penthouse, I stood in the doorway too long, a stranger. The silence was suffocating. Even the air was accusatory, clinging to me like it knew what had been done. What I'd let happen.
I closed the door behind me with a slam and leaned against it, breathing heavily. I should have shrieked thrown something. But I walked, wooden and stiff, into the lounge.
My eyes landed on the shelf.
Sitting on it was a frame.
A photo we took in Florence, six months ago. Serena had dragged me out of a finance conference, made me follow her through alleys filled with sunlight and bad graffiti. We'd gotten lost. She'd laughed the whole time, called it a spiritual detour. I disliked getting lost but I liked getting lost with her.
Her head was tilted toward mine in that picture, hair blown by the wind, eyes scrunched shut in laughter. My arm wrapped around her waist as if it belonged there. We looked like we were where we were supposed to be.
Liar. I wasn't breathing when I stepped closer. I just stared. My hand trembled when I reached for it. The glass was heavy and real. As real as her voice in my head. Real as the taste of betrayal on my tongue.
Impulsively, I flung it hard. It smashed into the wall opposite me, glass shattering like gunfire, metal frame spinning once before it dropped to the floor but it was still not enough.
I opened the cabinet beneath the bar, reached in, and picked up the first item I could feel, one of the whiskey bottles she'd bought me for my birthday. She'd personally chosen it at a craft distillery in Edinburgh. Sent me a message about how the burn was a lot like my temper.
"You hide heat well," she'd written.
I gripped the bottle around the neck and banged it against the edge of the counter.
It didn't break the first time but the second time, it did. A burst of amber liquid and broken glass sliced across my knuckles. The burn was welcome. It felt righteous.
I allowed the liquid to run down the cabinets. Like blood and then I fell onto the stool, elbows on knees, breathing hard.
I could still smell her. That soft flower musk that always filled her scarves. She'd leave them lying around. I'd found one under my pillow a few weeks ago after a fight and smiled like a fool.
I should have known all those times we spent together were staged. All those kisses, created.
And yet, something wasn't quite right. Something in the way she looked at me. The tremble in her voice when she said
"Then you would've never paid."
She had broken too. That wasn't victory in her eyes. That was grief and grief didn't act that well.
I walked towards the broken frame and picked up the photo. Edges ripped from the shattered glass. My thumb touched her face and the name echoed in my head.
Elia Torres.
The name echoed louder than Serena's now. Louder than my anger. I whispered it like a silent prayer.
I remembered the acquisition she mentioned. One of the biotech firms we took over three years ago, Torrentech. I didn't handle it personally. I was in Zurich for work. Someone else was in charge.
But she said Elia was there. That she disappeared. And I had no idea. The reality hit like a dash of cold water. I wasn't just betrayed.
I'd been manipulated, yes.
But I'd also been blind. No. Worse. I'd let it happen and I think I know who engineered it.
I walked into my study, opened the internal archives on my secured tablet and typed Torrentech. The screen was full of files, names, and financial reports.
Then I searched for Elia Torres.
One employee file, junior analyst, began four months before the acquisition. Tagged for reassignment, but there was no transfer letter. No exit interview. No resignation.
Just…nothing. Like she vanished into thin air.
I scrolled through internal memos. Most were routine project reports, monthly performance records, data security reports. Then I saw it. An internal email chain, marked private, between the takeover team and a compliance officer.
"Torres has flagged discrepancies in the acquisition reports."
"She's starting to ask too many questions."
"Handle it."
My stomach twisted. The emails were vague. Deliberately so. But the tone was there. The veiled threat sewn between every line. I recognized that tone. I used it and I'd taught others to use it.
Not like this, however. I taught them to handle things properly. Where was the follow up? Where was the audit? The accountability?
I slammed my fist onto the desk, ignoring the pain in my already bloody knuckles.
Someone had silenced her and I had never even known her name.
What if Serena was right? What if the rot wasn't just in her but in my home? The worst part was I couldn't tell anymore.
I rocked back in my chair, and the room was suddenly too small. My chest too tight. My past too heavy.
My phone buzzed. It was Marc. My right-hand man for years. Loyal. Competent and ruthless when necessary.
He was also one of the lead officers on the Torrentech acquisition. I stared at the screen. The name pulsed like a warning.
Had he known?Had they all known?
My fingers hovered over the screen before I hit decline and tossed the phone onto the desk.
I needed answers. I needed the truth and I needed time to process before talking cause maybe Serena had lied. Maybe she had manipulated me. But what if she had also been right?
I picked up my office phone and dialed directly into our personal security line. The man who picked up, Alejandro, owed me more than one favor.
"Sir?" he answered.
"I need a full investigative report," I said. "On a former employee. Elia Torres. Last seen three years ago under Torrentech."
He paused before responding. "That file was flagged and closed, sir."
"I don't care if it was buried by God himself," I snapped. "Dig it up. Turn over every damn rock. I need to know what happened to her. Who last spoke to her. Who gave the order? I need timestamps, recordings, missing reports, bank activity, everything fucking thing"
He paused for only a moment. "Understood."
I hung up. My hand stayed on the receiver for a long while and then finally, I breathed out to myself. Very low, to no one but myself.
"Find out what really happened to Elia Torres."
For justice was no longer a word in Serena's lips alone.
Now it was in mine too.