Even after the silver-grey minivan had vanished into the labyrinthine shadows of The Capital, Mr. Pembroke remained in a state of profound, oscillating despair. He was a man who had spent his entire life navigating the treacherous, high-stakes currents of the national financial world, and he knew when a door had been slammed shut and locked from the inside. He returned to his study, the air in the ancient house now feeling heavy with the scent of a dying legacy. He couldn’t accept the finality of the situation. Driven by a desperate, eleventh-hour hope, he reached for his secure line to initiate a final, futile trace.
He intended to use Kaitlyn’s recent transfer records—the fifty-nine million dollars that Ace Kane had so casually returned—to trace the origin of the transaction. In his wor
