?Chapter 132:


    Elliana nced at the iPad Matthew slid her way. The screen showed a grainy surveince video, but it was still clear enough to make out a man in his fifties, though his face remained a blur.


    Elliana racked her brain, but the man didn’t ring any bells. She had zero recollection of ever crossing paths with him. “Who’s this?” she asked.


    “Victor Stone,” Matthew answered. “While poking around your marriage registration with Mr. Evans in Podgend, we stumbled onto Victor. He’s probably just a middleman, though. Someone with deeper pockets is likely pulling the strings.”


    Elliana’s brow shot up, caught off guard. “How’d you even find him?” Before she’d sent Matthew to Podgend, Cole had already put his own crew on the case, and they’de up empty. Matthew’s unearthing of Victor was a curveball.


    Matthew exined, “All the records tied to your marriage with Mr. Evans in Podgend were wiped clean long ago. And the folks who processed it? Poof—gone, vanished without a trace. Digging into what went down back then has been like chasing shadows. We’ve burned the midnight oil, sifting through a mountain of data, until we finally hit paydirt: a snippet of old surveince footage pointing to Victor. We know he was in the mix, but what he did or how deep he was in? Still a ck hole.”


    Elliana listened, soaking it all in, her gaze drifting back to the iPad. She studied the image, letting it simmer.


    Matthew sat quietly, giving her space to think.


    After about ten minutes, a spark shed in Elliana’s eyes. It hit her. Fifteen years ago, Victor was there the night the Jones family mansion went up in mes.


    Fifteen years could change a person’s look, but Elliana had a gift for pegging people by their frame. She was dead certain the Victor on the screen was the same guy she’d seen back then. When the Jones fire zed, a crowd had gathered to rubberneck, with Victor among them. Just five at the time, Elliana had been scared out of her wits in the chaos. With people milling about, most faces would’ve faded into the noise. But Victor? He’d stood out like a sore thumb. Tall, looming over the crowd, with a sharp, hawk-like stare that burned into her memory. That kind of face stuck with a kid.


    Back then, Victor was just another face to five-year-old Elliana. But now, knowing he was tangled up in her marriage registration with Cole, she had to rethink everything. Who was Victor, really? And who was the puppet master behind him?


    Why go through the hassle of secretly tying her and Cole together in Podgend? And was the Jones family fire connected to Victor—or his shadowy boss?


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    Questions swirled in Elliana’s head like a storm, but answers were nowhere in sight.


    After chewing it over, she grabbed a pen and paper. From memory, she sketched Victor’s face as she’d seen it that night. When she was done, she handed the drawing to Matthew. “Fifteen years ago, during the Jones fire, I saw Victor. This is what he looked like. Use it to dig deeper and track him down.”


    “On it,” Matthew said, taking the sketch.


    He nced at the drawing and let out a low chuckle. “Lexi, you were five, and it was pitch-dark when you saw this guy. You can still draw him from memory? What are you, part cyborg?”


    “Quit yapping,” Elliana shot back, giving him a sharp look. “Keep this on the down-low. Don’t let anyone catch wind.”


    She hadn’t yet figured out why someone had orchestrated her marriage to Cole, but her gut screamed it was part of a bigger game. Whoever was behind this wasn’t small-time. They had the kind of clout that could shake the world.


    She was hardly surprised they’d gotten hold of her basic info. Her public story—an unloved daughter who’d lost her mom ages ago—was low-hanging fruit for anyone snooping. But Cole’s info? That was a whole other beast. Cole was a titan, his personal details locked down tighter than Fort Knox. Yet, someone had cracked that vault. And not just that. They’d picked Podgend for the marriage stunt, pulled it off without a hitch, and erased every trace. That kind of influence in a ce like Podgend was mind-boggling.


    Facing a yer this heavy, Elliana knew she had to move like a ghost. Until she had solid intel, she couldn’t risk tipping their hand.


    “Got it,” Matthew said with a nod.


    Elliana paused and then switched tracks. “Any word from the old man?”


    “Nope,” Matthew replied, shaking his head.


    Elliana let out a frustrated huff. “Goddamn it! He saddles me with the Star Society and then jets off to y world traveler. Five years, not a single word. How long am I supposed to keep running the show as Lexi?”


    Then, like a bolt from the blue, something clicked, and Elliana’s expression shifted.


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