His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and his heart nearly stopped when he saw her—a little homeless girl, no more than seven years old, curled up in the back seat. Her clothes were worn, her shoes mismatched, but her eyes were alert, filled with raw fear.
“They’re watching you,” she whispered urgently, pointing toward the glass corporate tower behind him. “Your business partner… and the woman with blond hair. They said you’d be here right now.”
Ethan was fifty-three years old, and nothing in his carefully constructed life had prepared him for this moment.
He had built Carter Dynamics from nothing into a $200-million technology empire. For fifteen years, he had trusted his partner, Ryan Cole, like a brother. For ten years, he had relied on his executive assistant, Laura Bennett, with blind confidence.
“How did you get into my car?” Ethan asked quietly, slipping into the driver’s seat without sudden movements.
“The cleaning lady left it unlocked,” the girl said. “I hid when I heard them talking upstairs.”
Her intelligence clashed painfully with her fragile appearance.
“They said tomorrow you won’t own anything anymore.”
Ethan’s blood ran cold.