Chapter 9 - The Other PrescottMaya had known David for several weeks.
In that time, she had learned about Victoria.
About his father.
About the nightly women.
About the businesses.
About the betrayal that had shaped nearly every relationship afterward.
He had never mentioned a brother.
Not once.
“Your brother?”
David folded the note.
“Yes.”
“You have a brother?”
“Half brother.”
“That distinction does not explain why I’m only hearing about him now.”
David walked toward the window.
Maya recognized the movement.
He did it whenever emotion became too close.
She did not let him escape.
“David.”
“His name is Alexander.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Marcus answered from behind them.
“Switzerland, according to the last reliable record.”
David looked at him.
“You investigated?”
“Obviously.”
Maya looked between them.
“Can somebody explain?”
David remained silent.
Marcus waited for permission.
David finally nodded.
Marcus spoke.
“Alexander Prescott is seven years older than David. Same father. Different mother.”
“And?”
“Their father brought David into the company.”
Maya understood what was missing.
“But not Alexander.”
“No.”
“Why?”
David finally spoke.
“Because Alexander nearly destroyed it.”
Maya turned toward him.
“How?”
“He was thirty when my father gave him control of a division.”
David’s voice was flat.
“He borrowed aggressively. Hid losses. Manipulated reporting.”
Marcus added, “The division nearly collapsed.”
“What happened?”
“My father removed him.”
“And Alexander?”
“Blamed me.”
Maya frowned.
“You weren’t running the company.”
“I was twenty-three.”
“That makes even less sense.”
“Families rarely require logic.”
Maya could not argue with that.
David continued.
“Alexander believed my father had always preferred me.”
“Did he?”
David hesitated.
“Yes.”
Maya appreciated the honesty.
“After Alexander was removed, he left the country. My father paid his debts. They barely spoke again.”
“And when your father died?”
“He came to the funeral.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Marcus looked at the note.
“If Victoria is right, Alexander may have had access through old credentials.”
David shook his head.
“He was gone before the transfers.”
“Officially.”
David looked at him.
Marcus continued.
“Your father’s credentials authorized transactions after his death. Someone had access.”
Maya sat down.
“So Alexander steals from the company, frames it to look like old internal transactions, Victoria’s brother discovers it, Vale helps cover it up…”
“And Nathan disappears,” Marcus finished.
Maya looked at David.
“Do you think Alexander killed him?”
David’s expression hardened.
“I don’t know.”
There were those words again.
This time he did not seem angry at them.
Only tired.
Maya walked toward him.
“What happens now?”
“I find Alexander.”
“No.”
David frowned.
“No?”
“We find out whether he’s actually involved.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Maya pointed toward him.
“Your face said private jet, dramatic confrontation, terrible decisions.”
Marcus nodded.
“Her interpretation is accurate.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Currently? Survival.”
David ignored him.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
All three of them looked at it.
David answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a voice.
“Little brother.”
David froze.
Maya saw it.
Not fear.
Recognition.
“Alexander.”
A quiet laugh came through the phone.
“It’s been a long time.”
“What do you want?”
“Still efficient.”
“Answer the question.”
“I wanted to congratulate you.”
“For what?”
“The girl.”
David’s entire body changed.
Maya saw the danger immediately.
Alexander continued.
“She’s pretty.”
David’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“If you go near her—”
“There he is.”
Alexander sounded amused.
“The famous David Prescott temper.”
“Stay away from Maya.”
“I haven’t gone near her.”
“You photographed her mother.”
“No.”
David looked at Maya.
She could not hear the other side clearly, but she understood from his expression.
“Then who did?”
Alexander laughed.
“You still think there are only two sides.”
David gripped the phone.
“Where is Victoria?”
“Why? Worried about your ex?”
“No.”
Alexander paused.
“Good answer.”
“Where is she?”
“With someone who wants the same thing I do.”
“What?”
“The records.”
David looked at the files on the desk.
“What records?”
“The ones Victoria gave you.”
David said nothing.
Alexander continued.
“You should be more careful with old documents.”
“What’s in them?”
“If you knew, I wouldn’t be calling.”
“Then why call?”
“To offer a trade.”
David’s face hardened.
“No.”
“You haven’t heard it.”
“I don’t care.”
“Victoria for the records.”
Maya stared at him.
David looked at Marcus.
Marcus was already signaling security to trace the call.
Alexander laughed softly.
“And tell Marcus not to bother. We learned that trick when we were teenagers.”
Marcus muttered something Maya decided not to repeat.
David said, “If you hurt her—”
“Victoria?”
Alexander sounded genuinely amused.
“You spent three years hating her.”
“That doesn’t mean I want her dead.”
A pause.
Then Alexander said, “You’ve changed.”
David looked at Maya.
“Yes.”
Alexander noticed the silence.
“Is she there?”
David did not answer.
“Maya.”
Her blood went cold.
David immediately ended the call.
The room became silent.
Marcus spoke first.
“Trace failed.”
“Of course it did.”
Maya looked at David.
“He wants the documents.”
“Yes.”
“So give him copies.”
David stared.
Marcus slowly smiled.
David looked at him.
“What?”
Marcus said, “I like her.”
“We’re not giving him anything.”
Maya folded her arms.
“Why?”
“Because we don’t know what’s in them.”
“Exactly.”
David understood.
“You want to see what he does with false records.”
“I watch television.”
“This is not television.”
“No, television has better coffee.”
Marcus coughed to hide a laugh.
David paced.
“If Alexander knows the records exist, he’s afraid of something.”
Marcus nodded.
“We need to identify what.”
For the next six hours, they did.
Account numbers.
Transfer dates.
Subsidiaries.
Authorization codes.
Maya understood almost none of the financial language.
But she understood patterns.
At nursing school, she had been taught that sometimes the important clue was not the abnormal result.
It was the relationship between results.
She looked at the dates.
“Wait.”
David looked over.
“What?”
“These transfers.”
“Yes?”
“They happen every three months.”
Marcus leaned closer.
Maya pointed.
“Almost exactly.”
David scanned them.
“She’s right.”
Marcus opened another spreadsheet.
“Quarterly.”
Maya continued.
“And they increase.”
David looked at her.
“What?”
“Each transfer is bigger.”
Marcus calculated.
“Approximately eleven percent.”
Maya frowned.
“Why?”
David stared at the figures.
Then he understood.
“These aren’t thefts.”
Marcus looked at him.
“What?”
“They’re payments.”
“To whom?”
David stood.
“Find every vendor paid from these subsidiaries.”
Marcus began typing.
Ten minutes later, one company appeared repeatedly.
Northstar Consulting.
Maya stared.
“The company that hired the investigator.”
“Yes.”
Marcus opened the registration history.
Then stopped.
“Oh.”
David looked over.
“What?”
Marcus turned the screen.
Northstar’s earliest registered beneficiary was not Alexander.
Not Richard Vale.
Not Victoria.
It was Nathan Cole.
Victoria’s missing brother.
Maya whispered, “Nathan owned it?”
“Part of it.”
David stared at the screen.
“Then Victoria lied.”
“Or she didn’t know,” Maya said.
David looked at her.
“You’re defending her?”
“No.”
Maya shook her head.
“I’m refusing to make the same mistake you made three years ago.”
“What mistake?”
“Choosing the explanation that hurts enough to feel true.”
David went quiet.
She continued.
“You thought Victoria betrayed you, so everything became proof that she was the villain.”
“She did betray me.”
“Yes.”
“But that doesn’t mean she did everything.”
David looked at the screen again.
Maya was right.
He hated that she was right.
Marcus’s phone buzzed.
“Security found Victoria’s car.”
“Where?”
“Abandoned near the river.”
Maya’s stomach dropped.
“Any sign of her?”
“No.”
David immediately reached for his jacket.
Maya stood.
“Where are you going?”
“To find her.”
“How?”
“I have people.”
“Of course you do.”
“Maya, stay here.”
She stared at him.
David stopped.
He had done it again.
He exhaled.
“Please stay here.”
“Better.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She walked toward him.
“I’m not coming with you.”
David relaxed slightly.
“But not because you ordered me.”
“Understood.”
“And David?”
He looked at her.
“Don’t become the man Alexander expects.”
His expression changed.
“What does that mean?”
“He called because he knows how you react.”
Maya touched his arm.
“He wants angry David.”
She paused.
“He wants the man who stops thinking when someone threatens people he cares about.”
David remembered the alarm.
Running toward Maya.
The photograph.
Moving her into the mansion.
Every reaction had revealed something.
Maya continued.
“So don’t give him that man.”
David looked at her for a long moment.
Then nodded.
“Okay.”
He kissed her forehead.
And left.
Three hours later, David found Victoria.
Not kidnapped.
Not injured.
Waiting.
In an abandoned office building that had once belonged to Prescott Holdings.
David entered with Marcus and two security officers.
Victoria stood beside a window.
“You came.”
David’s anger surged.
“You disappeared from my house.”
“I had to.”
“You left a note implicating my brother.”
“He is involved.”
“Alexander says you’re being held.”
Victoria looked confused.
“What?”
David stopped.
That reaction looked real.
“He called me.”
“When?”
“Today.”
Victoria went pale.
“What did he say?”
“That he has you.”
“Oh, God.”
David stepped closer.
“What?”
Victoria looked toward the door.
“We need to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because he didn’t call you.”
David stared.
“I heard his voice.”
“I know.”
“What does that mean?”
Victoria swallowed.
“Alexander is dead.”
Silence.
David’s face emptied.
“What?”
“He died eight months ago.”
“No.”
“I saw the body.”
David stepped back.
“No.”
“David—”
“I spoke to him.”
“I know.”
Victoria looked terrified.
“That’s why we need to leave.”
Marcus immediately spoke into his radio.
Security moved.
Then every light in the building went out.
Darkness.
A gunshot cracked somewhere below.
Maya was right.
May you like
There had never been only two sides.
And the person controlling the game knew David’s family well enough to imitate a dead man.
