I read the line again, trying to force meaning from it.
My phone rang.
The temporary one Priya had given me.
Unknown number.
Abigail’s eyes sharpened. “Don’t answer yet.”
But something in me already knew.
Not Victor. He would never call from an unknown number when there were more controlled ways to corner me.
I answered on speaker.
For a moment, there was only static.
Then a woman’s voice spoke, low and hurried.
“Lauren Bellamy?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Celia Ward. I was told to call this number if you found the case.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Who told you?”
“Your father,” she said.
The storage unit seemed to close in around me.
“My father has been dead for fourteen years.”
“I know,” Celia whispered. “I was there the night before he died.”
Abigail went very still.
Celia drew a shaky breath.
“Lauren, listen carefully. Victor didn’t build his empire from your father’s company. That was only the beginning.”
I could barely speak. “What does that mean?”
“It means Bellamy Freight wasn’t the prize,” she said. “You were.”
A sound echoed outside the storage unit.
Footsteps.
Abigail moved toward the door.
Celia’s voice dropped even lower.
“Don’t trust Russell Kane until you know why your father sent you to him.”
The line went dead.
On the concrete floor, half-hidden beneath the open dispatch case, one of the flash drives had rolled free. A strip of masking tape was wrapped around it, yellowed with age.
Written on it in my father’s handwriting were two words.