THE HEIRESS BEHIND THE LIE

CHAPTER 2: The Reyes Name

Jenna's POV

“I am not going to stop because someone told me to.”

I stared at the message on my phone again before deleting it. The second warning had arrived less than ten minutes after the first, and I could not ignore what that meant.

Someone knew I was looking for Zach Reyes, and they knew enough about my father's investigation to understand why that name mattered. I opened the photograph again and studied the building behind my father.

The logo was small, but I had already found the company the night before. It belonged to a business connected to the Reyes family. I searched through the company's records and found several properties across the city, but one location appeared more often than the others.

I wrote down the address and placed my phone in my bag. If my father had wanted me to find Zach, then I needed to understand what had brought him to that building in the first place.

“I only need to look around.”

I repeated the words to myself as I stood across the street from the building later that afternoon.

It looked like an ordinary office from the outside, with employees coming through the main entrance and several expensive cars parked along the road. Nothing about it suggested the kind of organization people whispered about when they mentioned the Reyes family.

I stayed near a small café and watched the entrance for almost twenty minutes. Several men in dark suits came and went, but they did not behave like ordinary employees.

They checked their surroundings before entering their cars, and two of them remained outside even when there was no obvious reason for them to stay there. I kept my head down when one of them looked in my direction.

Then I saw him. The man in the photograph walked out of the building and spoke briefly to one of the guards before getting into a black car.

I picked up my bag and followed him from a safe distance. I did not know where he was going, but I needed to find out what my father had been doing with him.

“He is meeting someone.”

I stopped my car several streets away and watched the man enter a quiet building with another man. I waited before following them inside. The hallway was almost empty, and I stayed far enough away that nobody noticed me.

I heard their voices from a room near the end of the corridor. I moved closer and listened through the partly closed door.

“The Ashgrove deal should have been finished by now,” one man said.

I stopped breathing for a moment when I heard my family's name. “It would have been finished if Ashgrove had not interfered,” the other man replied.

I pressed my hand against the wall and listened carefully. My father had been involved in this. I had no idea what the deal was, but I knew then that his death was connected to something much bigger than an accident.

Then one of the men mentioned the name I had been searching for. “Zach Reyes needs to know what happened before this gets worse.”

“Who is there?”

The voice came from inside the room, and I stepped away from the door immediately. I turned toward the hallway, but a man was already standing behind me. He looked at me for several seconds before glancing toward the room.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I am looking for someone,” I replied.

“Who?”

I hesitated for a moment before giving him the first answer that came to mind. “My friend.”

He looked at me without believing a word I had said. Another man walked out of the room and joined him. “She was listening to us,” he said.

I shook my head. “I was not listening to anyone.”

The first man reached for my arm, and I stepped back. “Do not touch me.”

“Then explain why you were standing outside our door.”

I looked between them and realized that I was not going to talk my way out of this. “I took the wrong turn,” I said. “I was trying to find the door outside.”

The man gave a short laugh. “You expect us to believe that?”

“Take me wherever you want,” I said when they started walking toward me. “I am not going to tell you anything other than what I said.”

One of them grabbed my arm, but I pulled away and tried to move past him. He blocked my path again, and I knew I had made things worse.

“Who sent you?” he asked.

“Nobody.”

“Who are you working for?”

“I am not working for anyone.”

They exchanged a look before one of them pulled out his phone and made a call. I did not hear what he said, but a few minutes later, another vehicle arrived outside. They took me downstairs and placed me in the back seat.

I considered trying to escape, but I knew I would only be caught again. When the car finally stopped, I was taken into a large building with several men standing near the entrance. I kept my face calm as they led me through a quiet hallway and into an office.

A man was standing near the window with his back toward me. He turned when we entered. I had never met Zach Reyes before, but I knew immediately that I was standing in front of him.

“Why were you following my men?” Zach asked.

His voice was calm, but cold at the same time. “I was looking for information about my father.”

His eyes stayed on me. “Your name?”

“Jenna Calloway.”

“What do you know about the Reyes organization?”

“Very little.”

He walked toward the desk and looked at the photograph they had taken from my bag. My stomach twisted when I realized they had found it.

“You were not looking for my men by accident,” he said.

“No, I was not.”

He picked up the photograph and studied it. “Where did you get this?”

I refused to answer. “My father left it for me.”

Zach looked at me again. “And why did he want you to find me?”

I opened my mouth, but before I could answer, he asked a question that made my heart sink into my stomach.

“Why do you think my organization had anything to do with your father?”