Chapter 2 - The Billionaire Heir
I pressed Chloe tightly against my chest and ran blindly through the dark alleyway.
The rain began to fall in heavy sheets, hiding the sound of our desperate footsteps.
We slipped through a broken chain-link fence and emerged onto a deserted commercial street.
A flickering neon sign illuminated a twenty-four-hour laundromat on the corner.
I pushed the glass door open and rushed toward the back corner behind a row of massive dryers.
Chloe was shaking violently from the cold and the sheer terror of the sudden escape.
I stripped off my wet robe and wrapped her in it to preserve her body heat.
"You are being so brave, my sweet girl," I whispered softly.
I pulled my laptop out of my waterproof tote bag and set it on top of a washing machine.
I needed to watch the rest of Harrison's hidden video files immediately.
I plugged the black USB drive into the port and clicked on the second video.
Harrison appeared on the screen, looking even more desperate than before.
"Victoria did not marry me for love, Sarah," he rasped into the camera.
"My biological grandfather was Arthur Vance, the founder of Vance Technologies," he explained.
I stared at the screen in absolute disbelief.
Harrison had always claimed he grew up in the foster system with absolutely nothing.
"I hid my true identity because I wanted a normal life with you," he continued tearfully.
He revealed that he had inherited a massive fortune that was locked in a highly secure biometric trust.
"Victoria found out and kidnapped me to force me to sign over the assets," he said.
His hollow eyes stared directly into the camera lens.
"But I legally transferred everything to our daughter before Victoria could stop me," he whispered.
My breath caught in my throat as the sheer magnitude of the situation hit me.
"Chloe is the sole heir to four billion dollars," Harrison stated.
He warned that the trust could only be unlocked by a scan of Chloe's retinas.
"Victoria is coming to take her eyes, Sarah," he choked out as the video abruptly ended.
I slammed the laptop shut as pure maternal panic flooded my veins.
The glass door of the laundromat suddenly chimed to signal a new customer.
May you like
I peeked through the gap between the dryers and felt my heart stop entirely.
One of the corrupt police officers from my apartment building was walking slowly down the aisle with his gun drawn.
