Chapter 4
574 Words
Elias barely slept that night.
The message was still on his phone.
You shouldn’t have taken the contract.
He had read it so many times that the words had started to lose their meaning.
By seven in the morning, he had already made three cups of coffee and ignored all three.
He wasn’t usually a paranoid person.
But something about this bothered him.
He finally picked up his phone and called Sophia.
She answered on the second ring.
“You’re awake early.”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Because of the message?”
“Partly.”
Sophia was quiet.
“Come to my office.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“You’re very good at giving orders.”
“And you’re very good at complaining about them.”
He smiled despite himself.
“Twenty minutes.”
“Fifteen.”
The line went dead.
Elias stared at the phone.
“Unbelievable.”
Twenty minutes later, he walked into Sophia’s office.
She was already there.
But this time, she wasn’t alone.
An older man sat on the sofa near the window.
Sophia looked at Elias.
“Close the door.”
He did.
The man stood.
“Mr. Kane.”
“Elias is fine.”
The man nodded.
“I’m Victor Voss.”
Elias froze.
Sophia’s father.
He had seen pictures of him before, but photographs hadn’t prepared him for the man’s presence.
Victor extended his hand.
Elias shook it.
“I’ve heard quite a lot about you.”
Elias glanced at Sophia.
“Hopefully nothing too bad.”
Victor smiled.
“That depends on who you ask.”
Sophia walked toward her desk.
“We don’t have much time.”
Victor looked at his daughter.
“You brought him into this.”
“I brought him into the company.”
“Same thing now.”
Elias frowned.
“Into what?”
Neither answered.
He looked from one to the other.
“Okay. I’m officially tired of being the only person in this room who doesn’t know what’s happening.”
Sophia finally met his eyes.
“Someone has been trying to gain access to confidential information inside the company.”
“And you think it’s connected to me?”
“No.”
Victor answered before Sophia could.
“We think it’s connected to the project you just joined.”
Elias felt his stomach tighten.
“What exactly am I working on?”
Sophia opened a file and placed it on the desk.
“This.”
He picked it up.
The first page showed the name of a company he’d never heard of.
Kane Holdings.
Elias stopped breathing for a second.
His surname.
He looked up slowly.
“Why is my family name on this?”
Sophia didn’t answer.
Victor did.
“Because your father was involved.”
Elias stared at him.
“My father died fifteen years ago.”
“I know.”
“Then why are we talking about him?”
Victor’s expression hardened.
“Because he left something behind.”
Sophia stepped closer.
“And someone is willing to hurt people to find it.”
Elias looked at the file again.
For the first time, he understood why Sophia had chosen him.
It wasn’t just because of his business skills.
She had known his name before they met.
She had known exactly who he was.
And suddenly, the contract sitting on her desk no longer looked like an opportunity.
It looked like a trap.
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