Chapter 3 - Guest Zero
Someone tried to erase Daniel Reyes before sunrise.
Not physically.
Professionally.
His employee record disappeared.
Payroll showed he had resigned four months earlier.
Security listed his badge as fraudulent.
His company email stopped existing.
By six-thirty, the hotel’s system claimed Daniel Reyes had never worked for Solmere.
Daniel stared at the screen.
“They’re doing to me what they did to you.”
“Exactly.”
That told me two things.
We were close.
And someone was watching us in real time.
Daniel began copying records onto isolated drives.
I called no one.
Phones could be tracked.
Emails could be intercepted.
At eight, Gideon called an emergency board meeting.
At eight-ten, the press began reporting that “an emotionally distressed Vale heiress” had caused a disturbance at the hotel.
Vanessa’s humiliation of me never appeared.
Neither did the deed.
At nine, a photograph surfaced showing me arguing with security.
The caption called me an “estranged former beneficiary.”
Former.
That word was deliberate.
I searched the original Solmere corporate registry.
My ownership line was gone.
In its place appeared a code.
GUEST ZERO.
Daniel went silent.
“What?”
“I’ve seen that before.”
“Where?”
“In access-control architecture.”
Guest Zero was a status assigned to identities the system recognized but had been instructed not to display.
A ghost profile.
Someone had turned me into one.
Still technically present.
Invisible to everyone except the person controlling the hidden database.
Daniel traced the code.
It led to Owen Mercer.
We found Owen in his office.
He was packing.
When he saw me, he stopped.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“That sentence is becoming popular.”
He glanced toward Daniel.
“You brought him?”
“He works here.”
“Not anymore.”
Daniel shut the door.
“Neither will you if federal investigators see these logs.”
Owen’s face drained.
He sat down.
“I didn’t start it.”
“Start what?”
“The erasure protocol.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel slammed a printed access sheet onto the desk.
Owen looked at it.
Then at me.
“I was given instructions.”
“By Gideon?”
Silence.
“Helena?”
More silence.
“Malcolm Pierce?”
Owen rubbed his face.
“They told me Charlotte Vale could not exist inside Solmere systems.”
“Why?”
“Because if you existed, the sale couldn’t proceed.”
“What sale?”
He looked toward the window.
“The entire company.”
My mother’s warning was true.
A secret consortium had offered $4.8 billion for Solmere’s luxury properties.
But the sale required clear ownership.
My controlling trust was the obstacle.
So they had manufactured documents showing I surrendered control.
Changed registries.
Altered access records.
Built a digital history in which I had voluntarily left.
“How far did you go?”
Owen whispered.
“Further than I wanted.”
“Did you create the record showing my mother entered the residence after she died?”
“Yes.”
“With my identity beside hers?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His voice cracked.
“Because they needed evidence.”
“Evidence of what?”
“That you knew about the trust amendment.”
I stared at him.
“They were preparing to claim I signed it.”
Owen nodded.
“And if you challenged them, those access records would show you were in the hotel reviewing the amendment with your mother.”
Two days after she was dead.
It was monstrous.
And sloppy.
Unless they had planned to change something else.
The date of my mother’s death.
Owen reached into his desk.
He removed an envelope.
“I kept this because I knew eventually I’d need protection.”
Inside was a photograph.
My mother.
Gideon.
Helena Sterling.
And someone else.
A man standing partly in shadow.
I knew him instantly.
Lucas Vale.
My cousin.
My childhood best friend.
The closest thing I had to a brother.
The man who had called me every night after my mother died.
The man currently helping my lawyers challenge the board.
The man who had told me to trust Marcus.
May you like
My mother’s warning returned.
The person helping them is someone you love.
