Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO DROVE A MILLION-DOLLAR SECRET
Ethan Cole had been pretending to be poor for nineteen days when he discovered someone was following him.
It happened at 6:42 p.m.
He had just finished driving Claire Whitmore home when a black SUV pulled away from the curb behind him.
Ethan made three unnecessary turns.
The SUV followed every one.
He smiled faintly.
“Amateurs.”
He parked beside a grocery store, stepped out of the sedan, and entered through the front doors.
Seven minutes later, he left through the loading entrance.
A different vehicle was waiting.
A dark blue Porsche.
His Porsche.
Inside, his longtime friend and attorney, Daniel Brooks, handed him a phone.
“You’re taking ridiculous risks.”
Ethan climbed into the passenger seat.
“Did you find anything?”
Daniel opened a file.
“Linda Whitmore transferred another twelve million dollars through a shell company yesterday.”
“Where?”
“An offshore account. But that’s not the interesting part.”
Ethan looked up.
Daniel hesitated.
“The account was originally connected to Reed Horizon Manufacturing.”
Ethan’s expression changed.
Reed Horizon.
The company his late father had once tried to save.
Twenty-three years earlier, Ethan’s father, Thomas Cole, had been a minority investor in the struggling manufacturing business.
Thomas had believed Margaret Reed was brilliant.
He had also believed someone inside her company was stealing money.
Then Thomas died in what police called a single-vehicle accident.
Ethan had been seventeen.
For years, he had suspected the crash was no accident.
Now, after building a private investment empire worth nearly two billion dollars, he had finally found a connection between his father’s death and Linda Whitmore.
That was why he had accepted a driver’s job.
That was why he wore inexpensive clothes.
And that was why he allowed Claire Whitmore to humiliate him.
He needed Linda to believe he was harmless.
Daniel turned the phone toward him.
“There’s something else.”
On the screen was a security photograph taken inside Whitmore Global Holdings.
A young housekeeper was handing Ethan a towel.
Hannah.
“Linda ordered a background check on her,” Daniel said.
“Why?”
“Because her employment documents are fake.”
Ethan stared at the photograph.
Daniel continued.
“And her real name is Savannah Reed.”
Ethan slowly lowered the phone.
Margaret Reed’s daughter.
May you like
The woman who had defended him in the lobby was the rightful heir to the company he was investigating.
And she had no idea who he was.
