CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

ADRIAN'S POVI received her response four days after I sent the message. It was a single line text sent to the same personal number I had used. The message came on my phone at exactly six forty-one in the morning, I was already at my desk and the city outside was still deciding whether to be day or night.Ten in the morning on Sunday. Crestfield Lane, the third building from the eastern end. The door would be unlocked.I read it just once and dropped my phone.She hadn't asked for confirmation, she had given an address and a time with the confidence of someone who didn't expect to be questioned about either.I picked up my phone again and looked up Crestfield Lane online.It was a narrow street in the older residential quarter of the city, just twelve minutes ride from Laurent Group headquarters, the kind of street that existed in every old city. The buildings along it carrying the particular dignity of structures that had survived long enough to stop needing to prove itself. The thi

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

AVA'S POVI had spent the morning at the city records office going through land registry documents connected to the shell company, the same thread I had been pulling at for four years, and by early afternoon, I was already exhausted.My studio was three streets from the records office. I had found the space few months after arriving in the country, a cheap sublease through a contact.I unlocked the door and stepped inside.The smell hit me first the way it always did, linseed oil and turpentine and the dry-cold smell of a room that held large amounts of canvas. I exhaled slowly as my shoulders dropped half an inch. Then I stopped, I sighted the two chairs at the small table near the window.That was not what surprised me, I knew the chairs were there. But I kept them pushed together against the wall when I wasn't using them, a habit so ingrained I did it without thinking.But the chairs were not pushed together against the wall. They were positioned at opposite ends of the small tabl

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

AVA'S POVI couldn’t sleep that night. I sat at the small table in my rental apartment from the moment I got home until the grey light of early morning began pressing through the curtains. The Redwater Holdings document spread open in front of me alongside every page of my notebook that touched the same thread.The third director’s name I saw on that old note was Damien Laurent.It was listed clearly in the ownership section that every other copy I had ever found had blacked out. Like the thoroughness of people who understood exactly what they were hiding and had paid enough to hide it completely.Damien was Serena’s husband, Adrian, younger brother. I had heard Serena mention him maybe a dozen times across the years of her marriage, and each time in the same brief way. Once near the end, when she was already exhausted. “I don't know why but he makes me feel uneasy sometimes.” Those were Serena’s exact words to me one day. I had pushed it away the way I pushed things Serena said abou

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

SELENE'S POVThe security alert came through few minutes to mid-day. It was not an unauthorized access attempt. It was a visitor flag from the Arden Tower lobby, routed to my personal security feed rather than the standard corporate channel, which meant Floyd Quake had made a judgment call about who needed to see it before deciding what to do with it.I was in the middle of a call with some foreign partners when the notification popped on the tablet beside me. I glanced at it once, noted the name and felt the rest of the conversation recede to a significant distance.A woman, Ava Bennett is at lobby level. She’s requesting access, she states that she has information relevant to Arden Corporation’s current market interests. REFERRED BY INTERNAL CONTACT AT THE RECORDS DIVISION, CITY MUNICIPAL OFFICE.I kept my voice completely even for the remaining minutes of the call with the foreign partners. When it ended I picked up the tablet and looked at the notification again.Ava had found a

All Chapters of REBORN TO BE A BILLIONAIRE: Chapter 41 - Chapter 44

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CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR