Chapter 2

I didn’t go to the police. I didn’t go to the ER, either.

After the car went into the sea, the scene would be processed as “drunk driving, loss of control.” The moment I showed my face, the news would travel along the shortest path straight back to whoever actually wanted me dead.

If they could tamper with the brakes and the door handle, they didn’t plan on stopping at one attempt.

I needed a place that wouldn’t ask extra questions—and wouldn’t hand me over.

Ben Harris’s private clinic was that place.

He was my doctor, and the only person I trusted besides Allen.

It was a little after two in the morning. The streets on the edge of the city were so empty they looked freshly washed.

The clinic’s storefront was small, the lights kept low enough that you couldn’t tell anyone was inside.

I pressed the doorbell in the pattern we’d agreed on. The door opened almost immediately, just a crack.

Harris wore glasses. He’d thrown a coat over his pajamas.

He looked at my face first, then at the blood soaking my cuff, then held his gaze on my eyes—like he was running a familiar test.

“Allen?” he whispered.

“Something happened.” I stepped in and pulled the door shut behind me. “But I’m not Allen.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly. He didn’t deny it, and he didn’t ask for an explanation. He drew a quiet breath, as if something had clicked into place, and then he said my name with certainty.

“Rex.”

I shrugged off my jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair, exposing the gash the glass had left on my arm. The blood had half-clotted, and the fabric stuck to the wound.

“Stop the bleeding. Something to clear the alcohol. And a room with a lock.”

Harris didn’t waste time. He led me into the exam room, flicked on the light, and pulled out disinfectant and gauze.

As he worked, he asked without looking up, “How did you end up like this? Where’s Allen?”

I met his eyes. “I just crawled out of an assassination attempt. Someone got Allen drunk, locked him inside a car, sabotaged the brakes, released the parking system, and let it roll toward a cliff. I woke up at the last second.”

His hands paused for a beat, then steadied again.

He didn’t look shocked. If anything, he sounded like he’d heard a conclusion he’d been waiting for, his voice calm to the point of sharpness. “So Victoria finally couldn’t hold back.”

I frowned. “Who’s Victoria?”

Harris looked up, confusion flashing across his face for the first time.

Then he seemed to understand what that meant. He set the forceps down, stripped off his gloves, put on a new pair, and his tone turned careful. “You don’t remember what happened in the last two years?”

“My last memory is the private plane accident two years ago.”

I leaned my back against the edge of the exam bed, keeping my body steady. “Right before the emergency landing, Allen was close to breaking. I forced him down, put him to sleep, and took over. After the landing, I blacked out. I woke up tonight. Which means Allen has been in control of this body for two years, and I know nothing about what happened out here.”

Harris didn’t answer right away. He pressed gauze along the edge of my wound with professional precision, giving me space to finish.

When he tied off the bandage, he handed me a cup of warm water.

“After you went under, Allen stayed awake. He carried everything alone for two years. Victoria showed up during that time.”

“Start from the beginning,” I said, lifting my gaze. “Don’t skip anything.”

Harris stood, crossed to a cabinet, and took out a thick manila envelope and a USB drive, setting both on the table.

The edges of the envelope were worn—handled too many times to count.

In that moment I understood he hadn’t pulled this together tonight. He’d been preparing to put the truth in my hands for a long time.

“I hired a private investigator,” Harris said. “After you went under, I kept watching what was happening with Allen’s company. Allen’s too easy to use. I tried warning him Victoria was a problem, but it didn’t work.”

I opened the envelope. Everything inside was organized with obsessive clarity: copies of medical records, photos, a timeline of authorization changes, summaries of fund transfers, screenshots of chats.

Harris had added sticky notes to every section, marked with “source,” “date,” and “key point.”

He pushed the first stack closer. “The plane didn’t crash, but you were badly hurt. Allen spent half a year in the hospital. During that half year he met Victoria—she worked there, a night-shift caregiver. She’s good at taking care of people, and even better at making them dependent. Allen came out of the accident shaken and fragile. For him, she was an easy lifeline.”

I flipped to the photos. A blonde woman pushed a wheelchair down a hospital corridor. The man in the chair wore an oxygen tube. Allen’s profile. In the picture she looked down and smiled—gentle, harmless.

“And then?” I asked.

“Then she started taking over,” Harris said, his anger pressed down tight. “First she answered calls and emails for him, because he ‘needed rest.’ Then she began meeting minor partners on his behalf, because he ‘wasn’t convenient.’ Little by little she appeared in public as his fiancée, explaining things for him, speaking for him. Once everyone got used to ‘Victoria represents Allen,’ the company’s real control started shifting into her hands.”

I kept reading. Authorization logs changed. Signatories changed. Approval chains and account permissions shifted.

Nothing was crude. On paper it all looked “compliant.” But every step peeled power away from Allen.

When I reached the fund transfers, I stopped. The descriptions said “Allen’s treatment and living expenses,” again and again, with sums that were too large to be believable.

“She moved the money under that name?” I asked.

“Yes.” Harris nodded. “She called it treatment, rehab, security upgrades, living costs. Allen believed her because he hates counting pennies with people who ‘took care of him.’ But look at the next page.”

The next page was a project handover summary: the company’s core project transferred to another firm under the banner of “efficiency” and “resource integration.”

“Whose company is that?” I asked, tapping the paper with a finger.

“Ryan’s,” Harris said. “Ryan is Victoria’s friend—at least that’s what she told everyone. But the evidence my investigator got says they weren’t just friends. Late nights together, money moving between them, the whole pattern.”

I scanned the chat screenshots and the photos. I didn’t need him to explain further.

Hand the core project out, then route the money back as “consulting fees” and “channel fees.” The meaning was simple: strip the company’s cash and future, and load it into their own pockets.

I looked up. “Did Allen know?”

Harris’s expression tightened for a second, but he told the truth. “He did. He saw some of what I brought him. But you know Allen. He’s not like you. He can’t handle confrontation. Victoria only had to throw out a few lines—‘If you don’t trust me, you’re hurting me,’ ‘What will the media think,’ ‘We’re engaged, how can you treat me like this’—and Allen would back down.”

His voice dropped further, like he was repeating a script he’d watched too many times. “She got more and more blatant. Every time, Allen apologized, explained, compromised. She used the engagement and public opinion to pressure him. She’s good at putting herself in the victim role, and making Allen feel like resistance is a crime.”

I closed the envelope and assembled the picture in my head: Allen awake, fragile, easy to sway. Victoria approaching, binding herself to him, taking power a layer at a time. Ryan taking the core project and building a cash loop. And then, once control was almost complete, “Allen” needed to disappear for good.

“I get it,” I said. “Once my death was announced, the company would assume Allen was the only heir. And Victoria, as the fiancée, would be the most ‘qualified’ person to make decisions for him.”

Harris looked at me like he’d been waiting for me to say it out loud. He nodded. “That was her plan.”

I slid the USB drive into my palm. “What I need now isn’t more guessing. I need proof of the attempted murder. The brakes sabotaged, the door handle ruined, the car placed on a downhill slope near the cliff, the restraint released, someone watching from a distance to confirm the drop. Those steps took people, vehicles, calls, payments.”

I held his gaze. “Help me complete the chain.”

Harris didn’t hesitate. “I will. Road cameras, nearby surveillance, towing records, rental records—whatever channels I can reach, I’ll use. Stay here tonight. Don’t let anyone know you’re alive.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” I said, standing and adjusting the bandage at my sleeve, making sure it wouldn’t restrict movement. “They think the car went down. That means they’ll relax. And they’ll move faster on whatever comes next.”

Harris stayed quiet for a few seconds. Then he asked, “What are you going to do?”

I tucked the manila envelope under my arm, my voice steady. “Read every line of the last two years and balance the account. As for Victoria—if she’s willing to hire someone to kill me, she’d better be ready to pay for it.”

The clinic was silent, and outside the sky still hadn’t started to brighten.