Chapter 2 - The Silent Pursuit
Corbin stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows of his study, staring out at the rain as it streamed down the glass.
Downstairs, the front door closed with a quiet click. He watched as Lianna stepped out into the steady drizzle, wrapping her thin gray coat tightly around her shoulders. She carried her worn canvas bag in one hand and pulled an umbrella up with the other, heading toward the long gravel drive that led to the estate gates and the nearest bus stop two miles away.
Corbin didn't hesitate. He pulled on a dark jacket, grabbed his keys, and walked down to the garage.
Instead of taking his usual high-end executive sedan, he unlocked a modest black SUV the estate used for winter maintenance. He didn't want to startle her, nor did he want to make her feel like she was being hunted. He simply needed to see where she lived—to understand the world she returned to after leaving his palace of stone and marble.
He trailed her at a careful distance. He watched her stand beneath the rusted overhang of the bus shelter for twenty minutes, her shoulders shivering as cold spray kicked up from passing delivery trucks. When the city bus pulled up, she climbed aboard. Corbin followed the bus through the winding streets of Providence, leaving the pristine neighborhoods behind and moving deeper into the industrial east side.
The bus pulled to a stop near an old brick mill building that had been converted into low-income apartments decades ago.
Lianna stepped off, clutching her bag tight against her chest. She walked quickly down a street lined with cracked pavement, faded storefronts, and flickering streetlights. She entered a weathered four-story brownstone building with peeling paint and a rusted fire escape clinging to its facade.
Corbin parked down the block beneath the shadow of an overgrown oak tree, keeping the engine idling softly.
Through the second-floor window, he saw a light flick on. A few moments later, an older woman appeared in the frame holding a small, blanket-wrapped bundle. Lianna took the baby into her arms, pressing her face gently against the infant’s head. Even from fifty yards away, Corbin could see the visible sigh of relief that swept through her shoulders.
He sat in the dark car, staring up at that lit window, wrestling with his conscience.
He had a stack of crisp hundred-dollar bills tucked into his jacket pocket. His initial plan had been simple: walk up to the building, leave an unmarked envelope filled with cash in her mailbox, and drive away. It would cover her formula, her groceries, and her rent for months.
But as he looked at her apartment, his mind raced back to Julian Prescott.
Why had his late father forbidden anyone from speaking that name? Why had Harrison Vance—a lawyer who only handled high-level corporate defense and trust funds for the Stanford family—been involved with Julian Prescott four years ago?
Before Corbin could open his car door, a long black sedan glided quietly down the street and pulled up directly in front of Lianna’s building.
Corbin froze, leaning back into the shadows of his SUV.
The driver’s side door opened, and a man stepped out into the rain holding a leather briefcase. He wore a tailored trench coat, silver hair perfectly combed beneath the drizzle.
Corbin’s breath hitched in his throat.
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It was Harrison Vance. His family’s seventy-two-year-old attorney, the keeper of every Stanford secret for three generations.
Corbin watched in total disbelief as the veteran corporate lawyer walked up the concrete steps, pressed the buzzer for apartment 2B, and waited to be let inside.
