The Heir's Midnight Deal

CHAPTER 10: Into the tower of doom

The night Callan Voss walked into Chase Tower with Seren Ashby, he wasn't just a boy playing at rebellion anymore. He was a man wearing a dark jacket, a custom-forged contractor’s badge that Rue had looped into the building’s own security matrix, and the calmness of someone who had already accepted the possibility of being locked up in a prison cell.

Seren was at his side, clothed in the same dark emerald dress she’d worn to the gala. To the lobby cameras, she was just an elegant, anonymous guest. In her own mind, she was more of a ghost. She kept her chin high and her breathing shallow, her eyes tracking the movement of the security detail like a hawk.

This was her life now. A series of high-stakes tightrope walks, each one steeper than the last. She remembered the rush of the first time she’d forged her mother’s signature to secure her own tuition, the way the world felt like it was shifting beneath her feet.

But this was quite different and the adrenaline rush that came with it was overwhelming.

"Badges check out," Rue’s voice crackled in Seren's earpiece. "Elevator to thirty-two. You have a seven-minute window before the next security sweep."

"Six minutes," Callan corrected softly, his hand brushing Seren’s elbow as they stepped into the private lift.

"Four," Seren added, her voice a ghost of a whisper.

Rue let out a sharp laugh over the line and scoffed. "You kids, bloody show-offs."

They stepped out of the elevators and onto thick, expensive Persian carpets that muffled the sounds of their footsteps. They stared at each other and nodded slowly, they couldn't back out now. They walked down the hallway to the right room and pushed open the door slowly.

They were inside, but the file was not where Vivienne had sworn it would be.

Callan spent  agonizing, heart-stopping seconds scanning the room frantically. He tore through the desk drawers, with a frown and growing panic, but the space was clean. Too clean in fact.

"It’s moved," Callan hissed angrily when he realized what had happened, his composure cracking for the first time. "He knew we were coming."

Seren went straight to the desk and looked further than the surface, but at the imprints. She reached into her bag and pulled out a small, high-intensity flashlight, angling it low across the mahogany surface until the light caught the deep indentations on a stray notepad.

The previous page had been torn off, but the pressure of the pen had scarred the page beneath. She knelt, her heart hammering against her ribs, and adjusted the angle until the letters came into focus.

She read it once, her breath hitching. She read it again, and this time the blood draining from her face, like it hadn't fully hit the first time.

"Callan," she said, her voice was thin and terrified like nothing he'd ever heard.

"We have to go, Seren, there’s nothing—"

"Callan," she snapped, a note of command in her voice that forced him to freeze. "Look."

He knelt beside her and together, they read the four lines together in the dim light:

Voss subsidiary shell — confirm dissolution date before Thursday.

Hestfield transfer to Chase Holdings — require Dane sign-off.

Seren Crestwood-Dane court date — Dane to appear. Keep her in the city.

Maris Voss — does she know about the '94 agreement?

Callan blinked and read the last line again, his eyes blurring slightly as his heart pounded furiously in his chest.

"There is a 1994 agreement," Seren murmured, her mind racing, connecting the dots in real-time. "Between your family and someone else...and he thinks it’s a dagger."

"My grandmother was acquiring assets in '94, before my grandfather died," Callan said, his voice heavy with the weight of the realization. "There was a partnership she dissolved, but it was supposed to be a standard buyout. If there was a clause—"

"Two minutes!" Rue shouted in their ears, her voice frantic. "Someone is triggering the manual override on the floor's internal grid!"

Callan quickly pulled out his phone and snapped three clear photos of the notepad. Seren was already at the door, her movements were quick, like she'd been trained. They slipped back into the hallway, moving quickly like people who knew their lives were currently hanging by a thread. They hit the lobby, crossed the exit, and were inside the car before the adrenaline even had a chance to boil over.

Four minutes and twenty seconds, not bad.

For three full blocks, the car ride was completely silent as they were both lost in thoughts. Finally, Seren broke the silence, her voice trembling with the gravity of what they had just uncovered.

"He’s going to use your grandmother, Callan. That '94 agreement? If he can prove the dissolution was improper, he won't just challenge the Voss wealth. He’ll challenge the legitimacy of the entire dynasty."

Callan’s jaw was set so tightly he felt a dull ache in his teeth. "He doesn't want a seat at the table. He wants to burn the table down and everything the Voss name stands for."

"We need to talk to your grandmother. Tonight."

"Tonight," he agreed.

She looked at him in the dark, the flickering streetlights carving shadows across his set, stubborn profile. "Callan." She called softly.

He turned his gaze toward her. The tension between them was no longer just born out of a shared secret they shared, it felt like the walls of a trap closing in.

"Whatever that agreement is," she said softly, "if Maris Voss knows the truth and she’s kept it from you, you need to prepare for the reality that the betrayal might not be coming from the man in the tower. It might be coming from the one sitting on the throne."

He held her gaze, a profound, chilling silence stretching between them as the car sped through the hollowed-out heart of the city. He didn't offer a platitude. He didn't offer a defense.

"I know," he said, his voice barely a whisper.

He stared ahead and as Callan watched the road ahead, he realized that for the first time since his birthday that he wasn't just fighting an enemy. He was fighting a shadow...And he was no longer certain who was standing at his back.