Chapter Fifteen #2
"We utilized a private intelligence firm to trace your closed adoption records," Cameron finally spoke, his voice echoing with finality. "We found your biological parents. They are alive. They manage a small logistics firm in Ohio. They have been informed that their daughter has been located."
Elena stared at the photographs, her hands shaking violently. "What is this?"
"This is your choice," Cameron declared, leaning over the table, his gray eyes pinning her to the chair.
"You have two options. Option one: you take the dossier, you walk out of this building, and you board a private jet that is currently idling on the tarmac.
You will relocate to Ohio. You will assume your birth name.
You will never set foot in this city again, you will never contact a single member of this family, and you will forget the name Langsford ever existed.
You will be permanently erased from our reality. "
"And option two?" Isla whispered, her voice trembling with the realization that she had lost control of the empire she had married into.
"Option two," Julian answered, "is that I press a button on this console, and federal marshals walk through those doors in exactly three minutes to place your adopted daughter in handcuffs."
"You cannot do this to me!" Elena screamed, surging out of her chair, tears of furious defeat streaming down her face. "I was raised in this house! I am a part of this family!"
"You were a parasite," Sebastian corrected, his voice laced with decades of suppressed disgust. "And you have been excised."
Elena looked at Isla, pleading for a defense, but the matriarch was paralyzed by the sheer, devastating weight of the brothers' retaliation.
Isla knew that if she attempted to intervene, Julian would simply turn his financial guillotine toward her.
The old woman looked away, silently abandoning the girl she had used as a pawn for decades.
Realizing she was alone, cornered by three apex predators, Elena snatched the second folder from the table. She didn't say another word. She turned on her heel and fled the boardroom, the sound of her frantic footsteps echoing down the corridor until they faded into nothing.
Cameron looked at his mother. "Your voting shares have been diluted to zero, Mother. A car is waiting to take you back to your estate. I suggest you stay there. We have nothing left to discuss."
The storm had supposedly passed. The threat was meant to be neutralized.
***
Four days later, the atmosphere in Langsford Towers was buzzing with the usual hum of high-level commerce. Aurelia, feeling the desperate need for a change of scenery after weeks of being sequestered in the penthouse, had requested an hour in the executive atrium lounge on the thirty-fifth floor.
It was a sprawling, sunlit space filled with modern art and plush seating, heavily guarded and insulated from the lower corporate tiers.
Aurelia sat near the floor-to-ceiling windows, a large sketchbook resting on her knees.
She was humming softly, shading the arches of a conceptual gallery.
Beside her, resting in a state-of-the-art, climate-controlled bassinet stroller, baby Ryan was fast asleep, his tiny fists curled near his face.
Harper sat a few feet away, sipping a latte, her laptop open on a low table. She was reviewing quarterly projections, but her peripheral vision was, as always, locked on the perimeter.
Down in the main lobby, a catastrophic failure of human error was unfolding.
Elena had not boarded the plane to Ohio.
Driven mad by the loss of her wealth, her status, and her identity, she had spent four days spiraling into a toxic, venomous rage.
She had retained a single, unauthorized access keycard—a ghost credential Julian’s sweep had missed by a fraction of a second.
She bypassed the ground-floor turnstiles, blending into a tour group, her eyes burning with a manic, destructive fire.
She wanted to hurt them. She wanted to shatter the serene, beautiful life of the woman who had effortlessly stolen the throne Elena had spent a lifetime trying to secure.
The elevator doors on the thirty-fifth floor slid open.
Elena stepped out, looking disheveled and frantic. Her designer coat was wrinkled, her platinum hair unkempt. She spotted the bassinet by the window, and the dark-haired woman sketching peacefully beside it.
A guttural, furious sound escaped Elena’s throat. She didn't think. She simply marched across the lounge, her hands curled into claws, fully intending to drag Aurelia out of the chair by her hair and inflict as much physical damage as possible before security could intervene.
Aurelia looked up at the sound of the rapid footsteps.
She blinked, her charcoal pencil halting on the page.
She recognized the blonde woman vaguely from photographs, knowing she was Isla’s adopted daughter, but Aurelia had absolutely no context for the sheer, murderous hatred burning in Elena’s pale eyes.
"You ruined everything!" Elena screamed, closing the distance with speed, lunging toward the sitting woman.
Before Aurelia could even register the threat, the air in the lounge fractured.
Harper didn't shout. She didn't hesitate. The real estate director moved with the explosive speed of a cornered lioness. She threw her laptop aside, vaulting over the low table and placing her own body directly between Elena and the bassinet.
"Don't you dare!" Harper roared, her hands coming up to aggressively shove the charging woman backward.
The impact sent Elena stumbling, but the madness in her eyes only flared brighter. She regained her footing, letting out a shriek of rage, and lunged forward again, aiming her painted nails directly for Harper’s face.
She never made contact.
The glass doors of the adjacent conference room exploded open.
Julian and Sebastian, who had been reviewing contracts mere yards away, moved with synchronized violence.
Julian bypassed the physical altercation.
The Chief Financial Officer dove toward the window, wrapping his arms securely around Aurelia and bodily pulling her out of the chair.
He spun, placing his broad back toward the threat, using his own torso as a human shield to cover both Aurelia and the bassinet stroller, absorbing any potential impact.
"I have them!" Julian shouted, his voice a commanding roar that anchored the chaos.
Simultaneously, Sebastian intercepted the attack.
The media mogul caught Elena’s wrists mid-air, his grip like iron vices.
He didn't strike her, but he used his superior weight and momentum to forcefully drive her backward, slamming her hard against the nearest structural pillar and pinning her there.
"Security! Priority breach, thirty-fifth floor!" Sebastian bellowed into the room, his charismatic face twisted into a mask of pure, protective wrath as Elena thrashed wildly against his hold.