Infinite Wealth: Revenge of the Lost Heir

CHAPTER 12: THE MONSTER BEHIND THE DESK

Ryan Vance walked toward the small bar counter in the corner of the room, pouring whiskey into a glass with a slightly trembling hand. The contact of glass and liquid sounded cliché in the midst of the luxury hotel suite's silence, which had suddenly turned terrifying. After downing his drink in a single breath, he turned to stare at Amber, who was still sitting on the floor with a pale face.

Ryan wiped his face roughly, his breath sounding shallow and intermittent. "I just faced Father," he whispered with a tightly clenched jaw. "And in my entire life, only today did I realize that the old man... he is truly a monster. Far crazier than we ever guessed, Amber."

Amber crawled up onto the sofa, bringing both knees close together as her body suddenly shivered. "What did Mr. Arthur say to you? Wasn't it your property project that was hacked? He should be tracking down the culprit, not being angry at you!"

"He doesn't care who the hacker is, Amber!" Ryan snapped again, slamming his empty glass onto the bar counter until it cracked.

"Father called me into his private room. He didn't shout, he didn't smash the table, he just sat there quietly staring at me." Ryan closed his eyes for a moment, recalling the murderous intent radiating from Arthur Vance's body a few hours ago. "And right in front of my face, he exposed everything. Father... actually knew about our relationship a long time ago."

Amber's eyes widened completely, her lips trembling without being able to make a sound. "K-Knew? Since when?"

"Since Julian was still alive!" Ryan shouted in frustration, tugging at his own hair. "He knew we were sleeping together behind Julian's back. He knew everything! In case you didn't know, Father deliberately let us play wild because you were deemed useful to lure Julian into the trap in Long Island. To Father, we are all just pawns to get rid of Julian so that the entirety of his mother's assets could fall into the hands of the Vance family!"

Amber felt as if the ground she stood upon collapsed instantly. All this time she had thought she was highly intelligent for successfully deceiving two Vance heirs at once. Yet the reality was, she was just a small mouse whose movements were monitored from atop an experimental table by Arthur Vance.

"But what made Father furious was our carelessness," Ryan continued, his voice weakening, replaced by despair. "Our video scandal leaked right onto the projector screen during the board meeting. Our internal documents were stripped bare in front of Wall Street. The great name of Vance became a disgusting joke in Manhattan in less than an hour!"

Ryan stepped closer, bending his body right in front of Amber's face, which had now lost all of its courage.

"Father has given an absolute command, Amber. As of today, all of your company facilities are revoked. No credit cards, no luxury cars, no access to corporate accounts. Father said it very clearly right in front of my face..." Ryan paused his sentence, staring at Amber with an ice-cold look in his eyes. "...if you cannot prove yourself useful after this chaos, then you possess no value whatsoever. And in the Vance family dictionary, an item of no value... will be removed from this world without a trace."

Hearing the word 'removed', the hairs on the back of Amber's neck stood up completely. Her head suddenly spun violently. Dual pressure hit her soul simultaneously: her Swiss account, which was her personal escape plan, had just been frozen by financial authorities, and now, the Vance family upon whom she leaned was preparing to discard her like garbage.

"Ryan... something is strange," Amber whispered in a choked voice, her eyes staring blankly toward the floor. "The problem with my secret personal account, the destruction of your project at the board meeting, the leak of our video, down to the sudden takeover of the restaurant... everything happened on the exact same day. This is no coincidence."

Ryan was stunned, his panic-filled brain beginning to try to process Amber's sentence. "You mean... someone deliberately did this to us?"

Amber slowly reached into the pocket of her crumpled gown, pulling out her phone, its screen having cracked into a thousand pieces from falling onto the restaurant floor earlier. With a trembling hand, she proffered the phone screen in front of Ryan's eyes, displaying an anonymous text message from an unknown number that she had not yet had the time to delete.

Ryan furrowed his brow, reading the short sentence laden with terror thoroughly.

[One by one, Amber. You will return to the sewer where you belong. — The Ghost of Long Island.]

Seeing the last two words in the message, Ryan Vance's heart suddenly beat twice as fast. A thick chill instantly ran along his spine, causing his face to turn pale instantly as well.

"T-The Ghost of Long Island...?" Ryan murmured, his voice choked in his throat.

"Ryan..." Amber looked at Ryan with eyes filled with a highly real, paranoid fear. "What if... what if the accident that night failed? What if Julian isn't actually dead yet? What if he has returned as a ghost to drag us all to hell?"

A terrifying silence once again took over the luxury hotel suite. Outside the window, a New York storm seemed to be preparing to wipe away the remnants of their arrogance, which was beginning to crack from within.