THE HEIR VS FEMALE CEO

Chapter 6 – In the Shadows of the Past

The image froze on Jenna’s face, Her hair was shorter now, swept back into a style that framed sharper cheekbones than he remembered. The lighting was poor, but there was no mistaking those eyes calculating, guarded, and entirely too calm for someone breaking into a high-security facility.

Sébastien didn’t move. He let the silence hang until Alain spoke. “She wasn’t alone. Two others, both masked. Military precision, they knew exactly where the cameras were.”

“Inside job?” Sébastien asked, voice low.

“Or someone fed them intel. Either way, they went straight for the shipping records in Bay Four.”

Bay Four. The shipments routed through there weren’t standard inventory. They were strategic assets, the kind of deals handled quietly between trusted hands.

Sébastien leaned back, replaying the footage, slowing it frame by frame. At one point, Jenna’s gloved hand brushed against a crate before she turned sharply toward one of the masked figures, nodding once. It wasn’t the nod of someone taking orders, it was an agreement.

“She’s not just along for the ride,” Sébastien murmured. “She’s involved.”

Alain frowned. “You want us to pick her up?”

“No,” Sébastien said, eyes narrowing. “Not yet. We watch. We listen. She’ll lead us to the one giving orders.”

Two hours later, Sébastien was in the underground command room of the Moreau estate.

A massive digital map of the city flickered on the wall, dotted with red and blue signals marking active surveillance.

“Track every known associate of Jenna Tremblay,” he ordered. “Family, friends, old business partners, anyone she’s had coffee with in the last year. Cross-reference it with Markus Varga’s network.”

As the team moved into action, Sébastien stood over the glowing table, piecing together the threads in his mind.

Markus had approached him directly a test, perhaps, to gauge his awareness. Jenna’s reappearance at the warehouse wasn’t coincidence. And Luc Tremblay? He was a pawn in a game being played by people who moved entire markets.

By mid-afternoon, Alain returned with something solid. “We found her,” he said, dropping a set of photos onto the table.

The shots showed Jenna entering an upscale restaurant on the west side, wearing a fitted black coat and sunglasses. Thirty minutes later, Markus Varga walked in through the back entrance. They dined together for nearly two hours. No Luc in sight.

That night, Sébastien took his place in a corner booth of that same restaurant, No one approached him; no one dared. When Markus arrived this time, he came alone, but paused at Sébastien’s table with the faintest smirk.

“You missed an interesting conversation yesterday,” Markus said.

“I prefer to hear things from the source,” Sébastien replied.

Markus’s gaze sharpened. “Then perhaps you should ask your ex-wife what she’s really doing in my world.”

The next morning, Sébastien received a plain manila envelope slipped under his door. Inside were a dozen high-resolution photos, Jenna again, but this time she wasn’t breaking into warehouses or dining with Markus.

She was standing on the balcony of a luxury apartment, laughing with a man Sébastien didn’t recognize… until he noticed the signet ring on the man’s finger.

It was the same crest embossed on the black card he’d received after Isabelle’s dinner, Before he could process the connection, Alain stormed in. “We have a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“One of our cargo freighters just vanished off the coast. No distress call, no tracking signal. And guess whose shipping company was listed as a partner on that route?”

Sébastien’s voice was ice. “Markus Varga.”

Alain nodded grimly. “And Jenna Tremblay.”