Chapter 4 - The Foundation of Glass
The forest around me seemed to tilt.
The sketchbooks slipped from my trembling fingers, tumbling back down into the rusted metal lunchbox with a hollow thud.
Ethan didn't build the firm. He stole the foundation.
It was impossible. It was a lie. I had spent eighty-hour workweeks grinding away in a cramped downtown office during my twenties, surviving on cheap ramen and black coffee, pitching venture capitalists until my throat went raw. I built Brooks Capital Global from the ashes of my own exhaustion. Olivia had been my rock, my supportive wife who packed my lunches and painted watercolors while I conquered Wall Street.
She didn't know anything about server rooms, network bypass codes, or high-level corporate infrastructure.
Or at least, that’s what I had always believed.
"Ethan?"
Emma’s small voice broke through the roaring static in my head. I looked down. The little girl was tugging gently on the sleeve of my jacket, her eyes filled with a sudden, genuine flicker of fear that had nothing to do with acting.
"We're hungry," Ella whispered, clutching her stale crust of bread tighter.
The anger and confusion warring inside me instantly dissolved into pity for the two innocent lives caught in the middle of whatever nightmare this was. Whoever had left them here—whoever was pulling the strings from the shadows—didn't care about them at all. They were just disposable tools.
"Come on," I said, my voice strained as I scooped the lunchbox, the scarf, and the sketchbooks into my arms. I reached out and took both of their small, cold hands. "We're going back to the house."
We didn't hike back along the trail. I picked up the pace, practically half-carrying the twins as we hurried through the darkening woods. The sun was beginning to dip below the western ridge, casting long, menacing shadows across the Blue Ridge landscape.
When we finally broke through the tree line and stepped into the clearing behind the mountain house, my SUV was still parked in the gravel driveway.
Except something was different.
The driver's side door, which I had left ajar when I first arrived, was now pushed completely wide open.
And standing right beside it, leaning casually against the hood with a lit cigarette glowing orange in the gathering dusk, was a man I never expected to see in North Carolina.
David Vance.
My chief operating officer. My closest confidant. The man who had managed daily operations at Brooks Capital Global in Chicago while I flew out for this supposed weekend of "healing."
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He turned his head slowly as our footsteps crunched on the gravel, a thin, unreadable smile cutting across his sharp features.
"Well, Ethan," David said smoothly, tossing his cigarette into the dirt and grinding it out with the heel of his Italian leather shoe. "I see you found the welcome package. Took you long enough."
