Chapter 21 Old Scars, New Dangers
Valenticias POV~
Natasha’s smug smile burned into my mind as the boardroom doors closed, her presence made my skin crawl. She was there standing, composed.
My heart raced, the hospital photo on the burner phone flaring into my memory — me, unconscious, vulnerable, caught by someone who’d been too near. The abrupt line had Natasha's written all over it. I made myself breathe and forced my shaking hands not to show as I turned to the board.
She claimed to be a financial consultant, and disarm my Nexus Ventures allegations with a charm that was difficult to ignore! “Ms. Valenticia’s conclusions are worrisome, yet premature,” Natasha replied, her smile cutting. “Without authenticated sources, these claims risk defaming our operations.” Her statements sowed doubts, and I watched the board members, their eyes darting between me and her. Mr Vance, Gregor’s man, nodded eagerly, and there was a hard scepticism on all but the neutral faces. The evidence I had acquired—the transaction logs Elaine had risked everything to hand over to me was labelled speculative.
A fury rose in my chest yet I spoke evenly, producing dates and figures.
Natasha’s counter was filled with manipulation, and by the end, my credibility was ignored.
Returning to my office I sat in my chair under the crushing weight of the defeat. Elaine’s warning about the silent partner, maybe connected to Dmitri’s family, rang in my ears. The unsigned text about my parents’ death, deemed accidental when I was 12, gnawed at me, a wound I’d never quite closed. I kept seeing Mom and Dad’s smiling faces in old pictures, their absence trailed me.
Was Gregor in on it? The idea was stinging.
I flipped open my laptop and gave Clawford’s archives a visit as my analyst self. My fingers shook as I looked for the crash report, buried in a digital vault. The file was indistinct, scanned from a yellowed document, but its details hit me: Someone had tampered with their car’s brake line, and the investigation had labelled it “inconclusive” because enough witnesses were absent.
I felt my chest tighten, my breath shallow.
Was it sabotage?
I sat back, my mind spinning. The report didn’t mention suspects, but the timing —- this was years before Gregor rose, years when my parents were going to lead Clawford seemed too coincidental. I put the file on my USB, determination setting in. If Gregor had been responsible for killing them, I would have found out the truth, whatever it took.
Lunch brought fresh trouble. I was going over the reports when Larson came storming in, his face a dark cloud. “Ms. Clawford, explain this!” He handed me a printout — a faked email that had been sent from my account, alleging that I had leaked sensitive financial data to a competitor. My stomach dropped. “This was not me,” I said, reading through the email. The timestamp was last night when I was home. “Someone’s framing me.”
Larson’s eyes narrowed. “This is a serious breach. Fix it, or you’re done.” He left, and I knew who had done it. Rita. Her sabotage had gone from deleting reports to this a planned attack to destroy me. I stumbled across her in the break room, stirring her coffee with a self-satisfied look that made my blood boil.
“Good try, Rita,” I hissed my words. “Forging emails now? Who put you up to it—Gregor? Natasha?”
She didn’t stop smirking, but her eyes darted to the door. “You’re paranoid, Valenticia. “Just keep accusing and you will bury yourself.” She leaned in and whispered. “You don’t have a monopoly on allies.” The slip of paper made it official that Natasha was manipulating strings, And Rita was her pawn. I fell back, filled with anger. “You’re playing a dangerous game,” I told her. “And you’ll lose.”
She shrugged, walking away but underneath the bravado, she was masking something. Natasha was gaining sway, and I was running out of time to pull against it. I went back to my desk and thought. Elaine had said she would have more on the silent partner, and I required her intel now. We were on a staircase the fluorescent lights buzzing above us. Elaine’s expression was troubled when she passed me a folded note. “Who is it?” she whispered.“Victor Galden. Dmitri's uncle owns a few banks here, in Lovtan. He is financing Nexus Ventures, perhaps even Gregor’s entire operation!”
Victor Galden, Dimitri's uncle, a man I’d seen only once, at our wedding. He had made me feel cold, his icy look and abrupt dismissal of me, making his distaste for me easily visible. “Why me?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Why target Clawford?”
Elaine looked around and whispered, almost inaudibly. “Victor’s got a grudge. His investments in Seryne were blocked years ago by your family’s rise. If he’s linked to Gregor, your kidnapping, even the gas leak, it’s personal.” She gripped my arm. “Be careful, Valenticia. He’s ruthless.”
The note was smouldering in my pocket, and I nodded.
The sight of Dmitri’s tear-streaked face, pleading for forgiveness at the gates, came to my mind. Did he know Victor’s secrets? Did his desperation signal a warning, or was it just one more betrayal? The idea turned my stomach, but I dismissed it. Victor Galden was the man, I must find the man and link him to Nexus.
Later that night, I remained at Clawford Corporation, as I compared Galden’s name to the transactions of Nexus Ventures, and my heart raced when I found him transferring money into accounts named Lovtan just days before my abduction. Evidence was piling up, but it wasn’t something I could take to the board — not with Natasha and Vance still working against me.
I shook and saved my work, and the office phone rang, in the quiet. I hesitated, then answered. A strange bass voice hissed quietly and said, “You’re probing too far, heiress.” The line went dead, and my pulse was pounding.
I just looked at the phone, barely breathing. But before I could shift, my computer screen went dark, replaced by static and then a live feed — of my office, my desk, and me. Someone was watching me, right here, right now. I felt icy fingers clutch at my blood and my eyes darted around the room looking for a camera. The feed went dead, the screen blank. I stood, chair scraping, every hair on end. There was a sharp, deliberate rap on my office door.
I stood rooted to the spot, my heart in my throat, as the door creaked open and no one was there, just a single red rose on the doorstep.