Chapter 3 - The Fortress of Glass
The estate in Alpine, New Jersey, sat behind two sets of wrought-iron gates, flanked by ten-foot stone walls and covered by forty-two high-definition cameras. To the outside world, it was an architectural triumph: twelve thousand square feet of limestone, steel, and floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking the Hudson Palisades.
To me, it had been a terrarium where I was slowly suffocating.
Victor Hale stood in the master bathroom, his silk tuxedo shirt unbuttoned at the collar, a crystal tumbler of Macallan 25 in his hand. He was forty-two, tall, broad-shouldered, with impeccably groomed salt-and-pepper hair and the sharp, predatory jawline of a man who spent his life winning boardroom proxy wars.
He stared down at the cream-colored marble tile where, three hours earlier, he had slammed my head into the vanity because I had dared to enroll Lily in a nursery school without clearing the tuition check through his family office.
"She’s an hour late," Victor said into his phone, his voice deceptively calm.
On the other end of the line, three towns over in Ridgewood, Tomas Varga was sweating through his collar.
"Victor... she came here," Tomas stammered, his hand shaking around his bourbon glass as his wife, Elena, wiped down the granite countertops in frantic, rhythmic circles. "She had the baby. She was... she was hysterical. Unbalanced."
"Did she stay?" Victor asked.
"No. We told her she had to go home to you! Elena told her, I told her! We made it very clear that a wife belongs with her husband. But she took off into the snow."
A dangerous silence hung over the line. Victor took a measured sip of his scotch.
"Did you call the police, Tomas?"
"No! Of course not! We wouldn't bring that kind of embarrassment to your name—"
"Good. Because if the local authorities get involved, questions get asked. And if questions get asked, people might start looking at Daniel's department at the Newark terminal."
Tomas’s voice rose an octave, thick with panic. "Victor, please. Daniel had nothing to do with this. Anna is just emotional. You know how she gets during the holidays. She’ll come crawling back by morning once the credit cards decline."
Victor smiled, a thin, razor-sharp curl of the lips that never reached his ice-blue eyes.
"The cards are already locked, Tomas. Her vehicle’s GPS transponder was disabled forty minutes ago at a gas station off Route 17. Someone is helping her."
Victor set his tumbler down on the marble counter with a sharp, heavy click.
"I pay your bills, Tomas. I paid for Elena’s hip replacement. I keep your idiot son out of federal prison. If Anna is not back in this house by New Year's Eve, your note gets called. All four hundred and eighty thousand. In full. Forty-eight hours later, the sheriff puts the auction sign on your front lawn."
"Victor, wait! Give us time—"
Victor terminated the call without another word.
He dialed his head of private security, a former state trooper named Griggs.
"Find her," Victor commanded. "Check the shelters, the cheap motels along the I-80 corridor. Look for Marisol Vance’s associates. And if you see my daughter, take her. Let Anna freeze in the gutter if she wants to, but bring Lily home."
Victor walked back into the vast, silent master bedroom. He opened the hollowed-out volume of *The Wealth of Nations* on his nightstand.
It was empty.
May you like
His breath caught. For the first time in ten years, a cold needle of genuine fear pierced the armor of Victor Hale’s arrogance.
***
