Uncovered Roots
The travel from The Voss Estate, a glass-and-steel mansion overlooking Los Angeles to The Langley Financial Tower, Beverly Hills consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
The Langley Financial Tower rose against the Beverly Hills skyline like a blade wrapped in glass. Forty-two floors of polished arrogance, each one a monument to the family’s belief that money could rewrite any law, silence any witness, bury any truth.
Xavier parked the sedan three blocks away, in a garage where the hourly rate would cover a month of groceries for most families. He killed the engine and sat in the sudden silence, his hands resting on the wheel at ten and two.
Beside him, Nadia adjusted the collar of her blazer—a borrowed piece from Helena’s wardrobe, charcoal gray with a structured shoulder. Armor for a woman walking into a war room unarmed.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said.
“Yes, I do.” She pulled the rearview mirror toward her, checking her reflection. Her eyes were red-rimmed but steady. “He stole eight years of my life, Xavier. Eight years of *Finn’s* life. If there’s a chance Grant has a hard drive with his plans on it, I’m not going to let it sit in a tower while my son sleeps in a house with bars on the windows.”
He wanted to argue. Wanted to tell her that Cole had already identified three exfiltration routes from the Montclair property, that the security team was rotating shifts every four hours, that Finn was currently at a library with Helena under an assumed name. But she wasn’t a civilian who needed reassurance. She was a mother who had already lost too much to caution.
“Helena’s in position,” Nadia said, pulling out her phone. A text from their friend: *At the coffee bar on the mezzanine. Grant just walked past. He’s wearing a watch that costs more than my car. Showtime?*
Nadia typed back: *Showtime.*
They walked into the lobby side by side. The security desk was a slab of black marble manned by three guards in tailored suits—private security, not building staff. Owen Langley’s personal touch. One of them stepped forward as they approached, his hand resting near his side in a gesture that could mean anything or nothing.
“Mr. and Mrs. Voss,” he said, with the flat courtesy of a man reading from a script. “Mr. Langley is expecting you in the executive suite. Thirty-eighth floor. He asks that you proceed directly to the conference room.”
Nadia smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. “We know the way.”
The elevator car was mirrored on all sides, trapping them in a box of reflections. Xavier watched Nadia’s face cycle through expressions she didn’t know she was making—fear, rage, calculation, grief. He knew his own face was a mask. It had to be.
“He’s going to offer us money,” she said quietly. “Owen. He’s going to act like this is a business dispute.”
“I know.”
“And you’re going to let him talk.”
“For as long as it takes.”
The doors opened onto a corridor of muted gray carpet and frosted glass walls. The Langley executive suite smelled like fresh coffee and old money. A receptionist directed them to the conference room, where Owen Langley sat at the head of a table long enough to seat twenty.
He was a tall man, seventy-two years old, with silver hair combed back from a face that had been handsome once and was now merely expensive. He wore a charcoal suit with a pocket square folded into the precise geometry of a man who had never in his life had to fold his own laundry.
“Xavier. Nadia.” He didn’t stand. “Thank you for coming. I understand there have been some… unfortunate misunderstandings.”
Xavier pulled out a chair for Nadia, then sat three seats away—close enough to be in Owen’s sightline, far enough to suggest he wasn’t there to negotiate.
“The bugs in our house,” Xavier said. “The surveillance drone at the school. The two men Cole found camped in the hills overlooking our property last night. Are those the misunderstandings you’re referring to?”
Owen’s smile was a thin blade. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. But I do know that my son has been very distressed lately. He feels that your return to the city has been… disruptive. Perhaps a financial settlement could smooth things over?”
Nadia’s hands were folded in her lap. Xavier could see the tremor in her fingers, the way she was pressing them together to keep them still.
“We’re not here for a settlement,” he said.
“Then why are you here?”
“Because Grant asked us to come.”
Owen’s composure flickered. Just a fraction of a second, but Xavier caught it. “Grant?”
“He sent a message through a mutual acquaintance,” Nadia said smoothly, the lie falling from her lips like she’d rehearsed it for hours—which she had. “Something about a property dispute in Marin County. Said he wanted to clear the air before any legal action.”
Owen’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t believe them. But he also didn’t know what they were really after, and that doubt was a gap they could slip through.
“I’ll have him called in,” Owen said, reaching for his phone.
“We can find him,” Xavier said, standing. “Save your assistant the trouble. He’s in the north wing, third door on the left. I saw the light on from the hall.”
Owen’s jaw worked, but he said nothing. He was too proud to admit he’d been outmaneuvered in his own building.
Xavier walked out, Nadia a half-step behind him.
They found Grant in his office, just as Xavier had guessed. The heir to the Langley fortune was sitting behind a desk that cost more than most people’s cars, his laptop open, his fingers poised over the keyboard.
He looked up when they entered, and for one frozen second, no one moved.
“You,” Grant said. The word was flat. Empty.
“Me,” Xavier replied.
Grant’s gaze slid to Nadia. “And you brought the wife. How domestic.”
Nadia stepped forward, her heels clicking against the hardwood. “We need to talk.”
“So talk.”
“Privately.”
Grant’s smile was a wound. He looked at Xavier, then back at Nadia, and something like understanding passed through his eyes. “You think I’m going to let you two in here without a recording device running? Please. I was born in this building.”
“Then you know I wouldn’t be stupid enough to try,” she said. “I just want to see your face when I tell you that we’re not going anywhere. Not for money. Not for threats. We’re staying, and we’re going to make sure everyone knows what your family does to people who get in your way.”
Grant laughed. It was a dry, ugly sound. “You think anyone cares? My father owns three judges, five city council members, and a senator who owes him his career. You could walk into a press conference and scream my name, and no one would print it.”
“That’s why I’m not planning on screaming.”
Nadia took another step forward, and in the motion, her hand brushed against the edge of Grant’s desk. She stumbled slightly—a practiced, perfect accident—and caught herself on the laptop. Her fingers found the USB port, found the drive she’d hidden in her palm, found the two seconds of cover she needed to push it home.
A soft click. Grant didn’t hear it.
Xavier did. He saw the tension in Nadia’s shoulders ease by a fraction of a degree, and he knew the data was transferring.
They needed six more minutes.
“You’re wasting my time,” Grant said, standing. “I have a meeting.”
“We’re leaving,” Xavier said, placing a hand on Nadia’s elbow. “But this isn’t over.”
“It never is,” Grant said. His eyes were flat, and Xavier realized with a cold certainty that Grant knew. He knew they were stalling. He knew they were up to something.
The only question was whether he knew what.
They made it to the door. Three steps into the corridor. Five seconds from the elevator.
Then Helena’s voice rang out from the mezzanine below.
“Get your hands off me!”
Xavier’s blood went cold.
He ran. Shatter of footsteps on marble, Nadia behind him, the sound of a scuffle growing louder as he rounded the corner and saw—
Helena, on her knees. Grant’s security chief standing over her, a gun pressed to the back of her skull.
And Grant, leaning against the railing, watching with the detached interest of a man observing a chess match.
“She was in my office,” Grant said, as Xavier skidded to a stop. “Snooping through my filing cabinet. You want to tell me why your friend is so interested in Langley family business?”
Helena’s eyes found Nadia’s. She was terrified, but she didn’t scream. She held her breath and waited.
“She’s a civilian,” Xavier said, his voice low. “Let her go.”
“She’s a liability,” Grant said. “And I don’t like liabilities.”
Nadia stepped forward. “Grant. Please.”
The plea in her voice was genuine. Xavier saw the tears gathering in her eyes, saw the way her hands were shaking. She wasn’t acting anymore. This was real.
Grant considered her for a long moment. Then he smiled again, and it was worse than the first time.
“Fine. I’ll let her go. But only because I want you to remember this moment tomorrow morning when you come to the compound for our mediation. You’ll be there. Both of you. And if you’re not…” He looked at Helena. “Your friend has a very lovely apartment in Silver Lake. It would be a shame if something happened to it.”
He nodded, and the security chief holstered his weapon. Helena scrambled to her feet, her face pale, her hands shaking as Nadia pulled her close.
“We’ll be there,” Xavier said. The words tasted like ash.
“I know you will,” Grant said, and turned his back on them.
—
The car was silent for three blocks. Four. Five.
Helena sat in the back seat, her arms wrapped around herself, staring out the window at the city lights bleeding past.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I thought I could—he was in the hall. I was supposed to be a decoy, and I failed.”
“You didn’t fail,” Nadia said, twisting around to face her. “You bought us time. The drive has everything.”
Helena’s eyes welled with tears. “He was going to kill me.”
“He was bluffing,” Xavier said.
“He wasn’t.”
No one argued with that.
Xavier pulled over on a residential street lined with jacaranda trees. The engine idled. The night pressed in against the windows.
“We can’t go to the compound tomorrow,” Nadia said, her voice raw. “That’s where they’re going to take Finn. They have a facility there—Grant mentioned it once, years ago. A ‘school’ for heirs. It’s a prison, Xavier. They’re going to put our son in a prison.”
“I know.”
“Then what do we do?”
He looked at her. The streetlight carved shadows across her face, and he could see every year he’d missed, every hour of grief she’d carried alone, every sleepless night she’d spent staring at the ceiling of a house that should have had him in it.
“I loved you, Xavier. I loved you until it hurt. And you let me walk away with a secret I was too young to carry alone.”
He looked at her, tears in his eyes.
“I’m going to earn that trust back. Every day, if I have to.”