They Stole My Daughter’s Future—So I Took Them All Down

After my flight from Norhaven landed in Westbrook, I, Mara Ashford, turned on the personal phone I had been forbidden to use for six months. During the classified assignment, I could only video-call my family from a secure work terminal. As soon as my phone connected, a voice message my daughter, Lily Ashford, had sent four days earlier appeared. Lily: Mom, I got the Bellmont placement! Each year, Eastshore University could nominate just one student for a legal internship at the Global Justice Council headquarters in Bellmont. Lily had spent 14 months preparing—studying French, competing in mock hearings, and volunteering more than 400 hours at an immigration legal aid clinic. Out of more than 300 applicants, she had ranked first. I was about to reply when a string of newer messages synced to the screen. The last one had arrived six hours ago. Just three words. Lily: Mom, help me. After that, her phone had gone dead. Her safety bracelet showed her on the third floor of the university's administration building, where it had remained motionless ever since. I called 911, then sent her location to Dr. Gabriel Hayes. He was the doctor I trusted most and a friend I had known for over 30 years. "I'll contact the hospitals near campus," he said. "Mara, wait for the police. Don't go in alone." 40 minutes later, I pushed open the administration building's doors alone anyway. A donor open house was underway on the third floor, and the corridor was packed with students, parents, and alumni. Two campus security guards stood beside the elevator, yet neither was doing anything to stop the livestream inside the office. Behind the camera, my daughter was kneeling beside a radiator. Plastic zip ties cut into her wrists behind her back, and a silver dog leash was fastened around her neck. Coffee soaked her pale blouse. Her temple was swollen, and her cracked lips were bleeding. I froze in the doorway. All I could hear was the heavy pounding of my own heart. "Lily!" She lifted her head with difficulty. When she saw me, her swollen eyes blinked several times before her shoulders slowly relaxed. "They locked me in the storage room... They only dragged me out a few minutes ago." With every word, the leash tightened around her neck. "Don't sign anything." The girl running the livestream turned the phone toward me. Olivia Reed. I had seen her in Lily's campus photos. She wore a Chanel suit and a visitor badge issued by the Global Justice Council. As she adjusted the stand, she deliberately stepped back so that both Lily's face and the dog leash around her neck appeared in the shot. "The fraud's mother finally decided to show up," she said. "Tell everyone why your daughter stole my Bellmont placement." Professor Adrian Pierce, the director of the university's international programs office, stood beside her. He sounded even more certain than she did. "Miss Reed's father is the CEO of Northstar, and her mother is the head of Project Helios Shield. The placement should have been hers from the beginning." Murmurs of agreement rose around him. I was working the clasp behind Lily's neck. At the mention of those two names, my fingers stopped for half a second. Northstar was the company I had spent 20 years building. Helios Shield was the classified project I ran. The public did not even know whether its director was a man or a woman. My husband, Daniel Hawthorne, was merely the CEO I had appointed. Why was Olivia claiming that our identities belonged to her parents? I crouched in front of Lily. Her breathing was shallow, and her eyes were losing focus. The nail on her left thumb had been torn back, and dried blood filled the creases around it. White scratch marks scored the radiator pipe. After they locked her up, she had clearly spent all that time clawing at the clasp. She flinched when I touched her hand. "Does it hurt?" Lily shook her head but hid her injured hand behind her back. Comments raced up the livestream screen. Someone asked Olivia for a closer shot. I put my hand over the lens. "An ambulance is downstairs." I looked at the guards by the door. "Let the paramedics up." Pierce blocked the doorway. "This is an internal university dispute. No outsiders are allowed to disrupt a donor event without my permission." "Chaining someone up isn't an internal dispute! Are you trying to kill her?" I held out my hand to Olivia. "The key." Smiling, she tossed the silver key into a fish tank. "If you want to save her, admit first that she stole my application materials." I grabbed a metal ornament from the desk and brought it down on the clasp. It held the first time, so I struck it again. The impact numbed the web of my hand, but the clasp finally split. The chain fell to the floor, and Lily collapsed into my arms. Olivia screamed and lunged at me. I twisted aside while keeping my grip on Lily. Unable to stop her momentum, Olivia slammed the bridge of her nose into the corner of the desk. Blood immediately poured down her face. Pierce pointed at me and shouted, "Security! Restrain this lunatic!" The two guards advanced. The ambulance siren rose from below, sounding again and again, but the paramedics had been locked outside. I tightened my hold on my daughter and called the police again. "All of you, stay back! If anything happens to her, I'll make sure every single one of you answers for it in court!"