Chapter 175

Chapter 175

The skin on her arm had been scraped raw. A faint trail of blood smeared the floor behind her.

Victoria's brow furrowed, but she didn't make a sound. She gritted her teeth and endured it.

They shoved her into a metal folding chair. Rope was threaded through the frame, lashing her body to the backrest.

She lifted her head and saw the man standing before her.

No cap now. His full face exposed.

Sharp cheekbones. Sunken eye sockets. Identical to the photos Terence had taken.

Michael stood less than two steps away, looking down at her the way someone might appraise a package already sealed for delivery.

"Awake?" His voice was much deeper than Victoria remembered. Over a decade had changed even the texture of it. "Don't waste your energy struggling. No one's coming here."

Victoria breathed heavily through the cloth stuffed in her mouth, her gaze fixed on Michael's face.

She caught his phone screen lighting up briefly in his breast pocket before going dark again.

He was waiting for a message.

Her mind raced.

Not much time could have passed since she disappeared. Edward would have noticed by now.

The security cameras at the community gate would have captured the white van. Veda was supposed to pick her up at the gate.

If Victoria wasn't at the pickup point, Veda would alert Edward immediately.

All she had to do was buy time.

---

Michael glanced down at her, pulled his phone from his pocket, and dialed a number.

He switched it to speaker and held it up, waiting.

The line connected. Silence on the other end.

Michael spoke first. "Edward?"

Two seconds of quiet. Then Edward's voice came through—cold as steel. "Michael."

Victoria's heart slammed against her ribs.

His voice through the speaker collapsed the distance between them. She could hear that his breathing was slightly heavier than usual.

"Your wife is with me."

Victoria couldn't speak with the gag in her mouth. She could only stare at the phone screen.

A beat of silence through the speaker. Then Edward spoke. "Michael. Let her go. We can negotiate terms."

Victoria froze when she heard those words.

She knew he was saying it to keep Michael calm—to buy time for action. But she couldn't stop the thought from forming.

What if Michael demanded company secrets?

Would Edward agree to that too?

The company he'd spent years building. Classified information that could send the entire Windsor Group into freefall...

Would he really hand it over because of one phone call?

Michael sounded rehearsed. Every word precise. "I'm not here to chat. I want a transfer agreement for fifteen percent of your shares in the Windsor Group, plus three years of internal audit reports and supplier lists for your core divisions. Get it all to me before the end of today, and I release her. If you call the police... you know what happens."

Edward didn't hesitate. "Where is she?"

Michael didn't answer directly. "Send me a scanned copy of the signed transfer agreement first. Once I see it, I'll give you the address."

"And if I send it and you go back on your word?"

"You don't have a choice."

Michael's voice turned frigid. "You have two hours. If I don't see the scan in two hours, you'll never reach her again."

He hung up, slid the phone back into his pocket, and looked down at Victoria.

Her eyes were quiet. So quiet it made Michael inexplicably uneasy.

"You're pretty calm about this."

Michael said, "You think he's coming to save you? Do you have any idea what he'd have to hand over? Once those documents are out, the Windsor Group loses half its empire. You think he'll actually do it?"

Victoria looked at him without moving.

The gag made speech impossible, but there was no panic in her eyes.

They were blood relatives.

Michael was even her elder.

But in this moment, he somehow seemed lesser than the young woman bound to the chair before him.

Her steady gaze irritated him. He stepped forward and yanked the cloth from her mouth.

The wad dropped to the floor. Red marks ringed Victoria's lips where the fabric had bitten into her skin. She coughed once, then spoke. Her voice was hoarse but didn't waver. "He won't give it to you."

Michael raised an eyebrow.

"How important do you think I am to him?" Victoria looked straight at him. "If I'm not wrong, this is your last play. If it doesn't work, you're done."

She held his gaze. "You have no one left in this country who can help you. The moment word gets out that you kidnapped me, every exit you have closes permanently. Edward is smarter than you. He's not going to trade real leverage for a hostage held by a man with nowhere left to run."

Something shifted in Michael's expression. His fingers tightened around the phone. "Victoria, do you think I'm negotiating with you?"

He crouched down to eye level, voice dropping low. "You destroyed every plan I had. And now you're telling me Edward won't pay? My dear niece, you still don't understand how much you matter to him."

A man like Edward—going to such extraordinary lengths for her, orchestrating all of this.

That alone proved Victoria's place in his heart was anything but small.

Michael admitted it. There was a gamble in this.

But he wasn't stupid. He hadn't grabbed just anyone.

He stood up and slammed his phone down on the nearby table. The loose papers stacked there jumped from the impact.

"Let me make this clear. If he doesn't hand everything over within two hours, I leave you in this factory. The Windsor Group loses half its empire and he's still rich. But you'll be dead. So think carefully—what matters more? You, or his company?"

Victoria looked at him. The corner of her mouth curved—barely. The ghost of a smile. "You won't touch me."

Michael's hand froze midair.

"You've been hiding behind other people since the beginning."

Victoria's voice was unhurried. "Back then, you hid behind forged documents. Then you hid behind Aiden. Now you're hiding behind my kidnapping. You never even had the courage to face my father and tell him what you wanted. And you expect me to believe you'd do something to me with your own hands?"

Michael's face changed.

He stepped forward, his right hand swinging toward her face. He didn't hold back.

Victoria's head snapped to the side. The corner of her mouth scraped against the fabric at her shoulder, breaking the skin. A thin line of blood seeped out.

She turned her face back slowly.

Same expression.

"I was right," she said.

Her voice was certain. Edged with something almost like amusement.

She'd just been struck. But her composure was strangely, defiantly intact.

Michael couldn't out-talk her.

He stepped back, chest heaving. "Sharp tongue!"

He was visibly rattled.