CHAPTER 4 — THE MAN WHO STOLE THEIR FUTURE
CHAPTER 4 — THE MAN WHO STOLE THEIR FUTURE
Daniel arrived at his office before sunrise.
He couldn't stop thinking about Mr. Salvatore's words.
Every Friday.
She had waited.
She had believed he would come back.
The guilt sat heavier than any business failure he had ever survived.
His assistant entered quietly.
"Mr. Hart?"
"Yes?"
"There's someone here asking for you."
"I don't have appointments."
"He says..."
She hesitated.
"...he worked for your father."
Daniel slowly looked up.
"My father?"
Five minutes later, an elderly man in a worn brown coat stepped inside.
"I don't expect you to remember me."
Daniel searched his face.
Nothing.
"I'm Thomas Reed."
"I was your father's driver."
That name stirred a distant memory.
The man who used to wait outside expensive meetings while Daniel stayed home with textbooks.
"What brings you here?"
Thomas removed a small metal key from his pocket.
"I've carried this for fifteen years."
Daniel frowned.
"My father told me to destroy it after he died."
"You didn't?"
"I couldn't."
He placed the key on the desk.
"It opens a safety deposit box."
Daniel stared.
"What's inside?"
Thomas looked directly into his eyes.
"The truth."
Across the city...
Maya couldn't focus.
The anonymous envelope remained hidden in her purse.
Every sentence echoed inside her head.
Ask him why his father visited your grandmother...
Impossible.
Daniel had always said his father disliked poor neighborhoods.
Why would Richard Hart ever meet her grandmother?
Unless...
Unless Daniel had lied.
No.
She refused to jump to conclusions.
She needed proof.
Not memories.
That afternoon, Maya's supervisor approached her.
"Mr. Hart wants to see you."
Her stomach tightened.
She rode the elevator to the forty-third floor.
Daniel was standing by the window.
He turned as she entered.
"I didn't ask you here to talk about the past."
She folded her arms.
"Then why am I here?"
He hesitated.
"My father's former driver came to see me."
Maya's expression changed.
"My father may have hidden something from both of us."
The blood drained from her face.
Slowly...
she removed the anonymous envelope from her purse.
"I think someone wants me to discover the same thing."
Daniel stared at the newspaper clipping.
Then at the handwritten message.
Without another word, he walked to his desk.
Opened a drawer.
And placed a small brass key beside the envelope.
Maya looked from the key...
to Daniel...
back to the key.
"What is that?"
"A safety deposit box."
"What does it contain?"
Daniel met her eyes.
"I don't know."
"But I think..."
"...our entire lives may have been built on a lie."
Neither of them noticed the security camera in the corner.
Or the man inside the building's surveillance room quietly zooming in on the brass key.
He pulled out his phone.
Dialed a number.
"They found it," he whispered.
A cold voice answered.
"Then make sure they never open that box."
The call ended.
Outside the skyscraper, a black SUV slowly pulled away from the curb.
Its driver watched Daniel's office through tinted windows.
The past was no longer buried.
May you like
And someone was willing to do anything...
to keep it that way.
