Chapter 2 - The Penthouse and the Truth
The penthouse suite of the Vale International Hotel occupied the top three floors of the tallest glass tower downtown. By 2:00 AM, my feet had been meticulously treated and bandaged by a private physician, a warm broth had restored the color to my cheeks, and I was dressed in a soft silk loungewear set that felt like air against my bruised skin.
Alexander sat opposite me in a massive library lined with first-edition books, a crackling fire casting a warm orange glow over his face. He held a glass of scotch, but he hadn't touched it. He was simply watching me, as if making sure I wouldn't vanish into the night.
"Your mother, Evelyn, was my only daughter," Alexander began, his voice heavy with a decades-old sorrow. "She was brilliant, beautiful, and incredibly reckless. When she met your biological father, Arthur Hale, she thought she could escape the responsibilities of the Vale dynasty. Arthur was a brilliant scholar, a good man, but he lacked the armor required to survive in our world. When he died in that accident when you were an infant, Evelyn broke. Instead of coming home to me, she let her guilt drive her into the arms of a parasite."
"Victor," I said, the name tasting like ash in my mouth.
"Victor Vance," Alexander spat, his grip tightening on his glass. "A mid-level logistics manager with a gambling habit and an insatiable desire for control. He targeted your mother when she was vulnerable. He convinced her that the Vale family had abandoned her, that I was a tyrant who wanted to steal her child. She hid you from me, changed your records, moved across three states, and allowed that man to systematically drain her trust fund until there was nothing left but that house."
I pressed the silver pendant at my chest—the one thing Victor hadn't managed to tear away from me. "Why did she watch him hurt me? Why didn't she stop him?"
"Because a person who has spent fifteen years justifying her own cage will always hate the person who tries to run away from it," Alexander said gently. "Your acceptance to Harrington University wasn't just a scholarship, Elena. It was a mirror showing her that she chose to stay in the dark, while you chose to climb into the light. She couldn't handle that."
He stood up, walking over to a massive mahogany desk, and picked up a thick, bound leather ledger. "But your grandmother and I never stopped looking for you. When your grandmother passed away last year, she left a specific clause in her personal estate. A fund of four hundred million dollars, accessible only by you, upon your acceptance to a university of higher learning."
He placed the ledger in my lap. "Victor thought he was stopping you from going to school. What he actually did was trigger the public activation of the Vale Trust. The moment Harrington University processed your scholarship registration, our tracking algorithms flagged your name. I was already on my way to that house before he even pulled off his belt."
May you like
I looked down at the ledger. The numbers were staggering, a level of wealth I couldn't even comprehend. But I didn't care about the money. I looked up at my grandfather, the tears finally welling in my eyes. "He burned my acceptance letter. He threw away my laptop with all my designs."
Alexander smiled, a sharp, brilliant expression that held a dangerous edge. "Then tomorrow, we will buy Harrington University's engineering wing. We will build you a new lab. And as for Victor and Evelyn... they are about to learn what happens when you steal from a Vale."
