Chapter 2 - The Man Nobody Knew
Ethan hit the door with his palm.
Locked.
Through the glass, guests were still moving normally.
Nobody appeared frightened.
That meant the threat was not physical.
At least not yet.
He called Victoria.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Maya remained on the other line.
“Ethan?”
“Trace the number.”
“Already doing it.”
“Call building security.”
“What happened?”
“Someone locked the ballroom.”
The doors opened suddenly.
A security guard stared at him.
“Sir?”
Ethan looked past him.
“Who locked these?”
“They weren’t locked.”
“They were.”
The guard frowned.
Ethan understood.
Electronic access.
Someone had triggered the lock remotely, then released it.
A demonstration.
We can reach her.
Ethan walked back inside.
Victoria saw him immediately.
Her expression hardened.
“I thought I told you to leave.”
“Give me your phone.”
“What?”
“Victoria.”
“No.”
Malcolm stepped between them.
“Perhaps tonight has been stressful enough.”
Ethan ignored him.
“Victoria, did you authorize a transfer tonight?”
Her anger disappeared for a fraction of a second.
“What transfer?”
“Four hundred eighty million dollars.”
Richard heard the number.
He crossed the room quickly.
“What are you talking about?”
Ethan watched Victoria.
She looked genuinely confused.
Good.
That meant her credentials had been stolen.
Bad.
It meant someone close enough to access executive authentication had planned this carefully.
Malcolm frowned.
“That’s impossible.”
Ethan turned toward him.
“I didn’t ask you.”
Malcolm’s jaw tightened.
Richard said, “Explain.”
Ethan lowered his voice.
“Someone moved nearly half a billion dollars from Halston’s liquidity reserve eleven minutes ago.”
Richard stared at him.
“How would you know?”
There it was.
The question Ethan had avoided for eighteen months.
Victoria looked between them.
“How would you know?”
Ethan took out his phone.
He called Maya.
“Put the freeze confirmation on speaker.”
Maya answered immediately.
“Northstar has suspended all Halston credit facilities pending investigation.”
Richard’s face drained.
Malcolm whispered, “Northstar?”
Victoria stared at Ethan.
Ethan ended the call.
Richard stepped closer.
“What is your relationship with Northstar?”
Ethan said nothing.
“Answer me.”
“Northstar is mine.”
The words were quiet.
Their effect was not.
Richard simply stared.
Victoria laughed once.
It was not amusement.
It was disbelief.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Ethan opened the Northstar banking application.
He showed Richard the institutional dashboard.
Richard recognized the accounts.
The credit facilities.
The bond holdings.
The numbers.
His hand tightened around his champagne glass.
“No.”
“Yes.”
Richard looked at him as if seeing him for the first time.
“You own Northstar Capital?”
“I founded it.”
Victoria shook her head.
“You told me you were a consultant.”
“I am.”
“You lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“You let me believe—”
“You never asked.”
Her face changed.
That answer struck somewhere deeper.
Malcolm recovered first.
“This proves nothing about the transfer.”
Ethan looked at him.
“No. The transfer proves something about you.”
Malcolm smiled faintly.
“Careful.”
“I am.”
Richard interrupted.
“Can you recover the money?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“If nobody interferes.”
Richard looked toward the guests.
The gala was dissolving into whispers.
Phones were everywhere now.
Serena was watching Victoria with open fascination.
Ethan said, “End the party.”
Victoria snapped, “You don’t give orders here.”
Richard turned toward his daughter.
“End it.”
Victoria froze.
Her father had never sided with Ethan publicly.
Not once.
Richard raised his voice.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. We’ve had an internal matter requiring our attention. Cars will be brought around immediately.”
Guests began leaving reluctantly.
The gossip would travel faster than they did.
Twenty minutes later, only family and senior executives remained.
Ethan stood in Richard’s private library.
Victoria remained near the fireplace.
Malcolm sat opposite Richard.
Serena had been asked to leave.
Richard’s younger brother, Charles, joined by video call from London.
Ethan placed his laptop on the desk.
“Victoria’s credentials authorized the transfer.”
Victoria folded her arms.
“I didn’t do it.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because whoever did it wanted the authorization traced to you.”
Malcolm said, “Or she’s lying.”
Victoria looked at him sharply.
Malcolm lifted his hands.
“I’m discussing possibilities.”
Ethan opened transaction records.
“The money moved through three subsidiaries and reached Arcadia Recovery Corporation.”
Malcolm stopped breathing.
Only for a second.
Ethan noticed.
Richard did not.
“What is Arcadia?” Richard asked.
“A shell.”
“Owned by?”
“That’s what I’m finding out.”
Victoria looked at Ethan.
“You saw something on my shoe.”
Ethan glanced at her.
She had noticed.
“What?”
“When you were cleaning it. You stopped.”
Ethan nodded.
“ARC was scratched into the leather.”
Victoria looked down.
“How?”
“Where did you get the shoes?”
“My assistant brought them from the dressing room.”
“Who had access?”
“Half the staff.”
Malcolm leaned forward.
“This is becoming absurd.”
“No,” Ethan said. “It’s becoming organized.”
Richard rubbed his forehead.
“Why steal four hundred eighty million if the transfer can be traced?”
“Because theft may not be the objective.”
“What is?”
Ethan rotated the laptop.
A series of debt covenants appeared.
“If Halston’s liquidity falls below this threshold before Monday, three lenders can declare technical default.”
Richard stared.
Malcolm whispered, “That would trigger cross-default.”
“Yes.”
Victoria looked between them.
“What does that mean?”
Ethan answered.
“Every major lender could demand repayment.”
“How much?”
“Four point two billion.”
Victoria went pale.
Richard stood.
“That would destroy us.”
“Not necessarily.”
Malcolm looked at Ethan.
“Northstar.”
Ethan nodded.
Northstar held enough Halston debt to block an immediate liquidation.
Which meant whoever planned the attack needed Northstar out of the way.
The anonymous message suddenly made sense.
DON’T FREEZE THE MONEY.
YOU STILL HAVE TIME TO SAVE YOUR WIFE.
They wanted Ethan to choose.
Protect Victoria.
Or protect Halston.
Victoria noticed his expression.
“What?”
Ethan showed her the message.
She read it twice.
Her arrogance vanished.
“Is this some kind of joke?”
“No.”
“Who sent it?”
“I don’t know.”
Richard said, “Call the police.”
“Not yet.”
Victoria stared at Ethan.
“Why not?”
“Because whoever did this has access to your executive credentials, your dressing room, the ballroom security system, and our financial structure.”
“Our?”
Ethan almost corrected himself.
He did not.
Richard understood anyway.
“You’ve been inside our systems.”
“For eighteen months.”
“Without board authority?”
“With emergency authorization from your lenders.”
Richard sat down.
He remembered.
Eighteen months earlier, Northstar had demanded independent oversight as a condition of rescuing Halston.
Richard had signed without reading every appendix.
“You wrote that agreement,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
Victoria stared at Ethan.
“You saved the company.”
He looked at her.
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
Ethan did not answer.
Richard did.
“More than once.”
Ethan closed the laptop.
“Six.”
Nobody spoke.
Victoria sat slowly.
Six times.
While she had mocked his “little consulting projects.”
While she complained that he never attended enough parties.
While she accused him of enjoying her family’s money.
Six times.
Richard asked, “Why?”
Ethan looked at Victoria.
“Because she loved this family.”
Victoria looked away.
Loved.
Past tense.
She heard it.
Ethan’s phone rang.
Maya.
“We found Arcadia’s beneficial owner.”
“Who?”
“I’m sending the document.”
A PDF appeared.
Ethan opened it.
Delaware incorporation records.
Layered trusts.
A Cayman entity.
Then a signature page.
Richard leaned closer.
Victoria stood behind Ethan.
Malcolm remained perfectly still.
The beneficial ownership declaration contained one name.
Not Malcolm Price.
Not Victoria.
Not Richard.
Ethan read it twice.
Then he looked across the desk.
Richard followed his eyes.
Malcolm slowly stood.
“What?” Victoria asked.
Ethan turned the laptop toward her.
Victoria stared at the name.
Her hand went to her mouth.
The person behind Arcadia was a Halston.
May you like
But it wasn’t the Halston sitting in that room.
It was Richard’s supposedly dead eldest son.
