Chapter 1 - The Master Passcode
I crushed Claire's handwritten letter in my fist.
The scent of Vanessa's expensive perfume on my collar suddenly made me feel violently sick.
My mother had just warned me not to use my vast resources to track down my wife.
She threatened to testify against me in court if I dared to try.
But I was Grant Holloway.
I controlled a billion-dollar logistics empire.
I did not simply let people walk away from me in the middle of a freezing snowstorm.
I pulled my encrypted mobile phone from my suit pocket.
I instantly dialed Marcus, my ruthless head of private security.
Marcus answered on the first ring.
I ordered him to lock down the city and pull the security footage from my townhouse.
I needed to see exactly what time Claire had packed her bags.
I needed to know which vehicle she used to transport my fragile premature twins.
Marcus typed rapidly on his keyboard on the other end of the line.
A heavy silence stretched between us for nearly a minute.
I demanded to know what was taking so long.
Marcus finally spoke, his voice trembling with genuine hesitation.
He told me that the security footage for the entire night had been permanently deleted.
I yelled that our system was a military-grade fortress.
I told him it was impossible for a tired, depressed mother to hack a multimillion-dollar security grid.
Marcus took a deep, shaky breath.
He explained that she did not hack the system at all.
The footage was manually wiped from the inside.
The person who deleted it used my personal, highly encrypted biometric passcode.
I felt the blood completely drain from my face.
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There was only one other person in the world who possessed my master override code.
It was my younger brother, Julian.
