Unfinished Business

Half an hour melted away in the silent, tension-filled office. Callum suddenly leaped up from his leather armchair. He gripped the iPad, his knuckles turning white. "Mr. Thorne, Mrs. Thorne has gone missing!"

Declan narrowed his eyes to a sharp slit. A dark, triumphant smirk played on his lips as he tossed the stack of financial reports aside. "Looks like she ran out of patience. Start the car right now. We are going to the mansion."

"On it, sir!" Callum shouted, rushing out the door.

Back at the Thorne estate, pure chaos erupted across the manicured lawns. Frantic staff members scurried like disturbed ants. Maids shouted Valerie's name into the hedges. Bodyguards swept flashlights through the blossoming gardens. No one could find a single trace of the missing bride.

Tucked deep into the darkest corner of the grounds, a disguised Valerie crouched. She pressed her back against the cool stone wall. She stayed in a perfect blind spot, having calculated the rotating arcs of the new dome cameras without a single flaw. A mocking smirk painted her face as she watched the security team scramble.

She turned around and faced the imposing two-meter courtyard boundary. With a fluid, silent motion, she ran forward and used a decorative ridge for leverage. She leaped over the towering wall as if gravity did not apply to her. She landed on the soft grass outside without making a sound.

Valerie adjusted the brim of her snapback, pulling it lower over her piercing eyes. "Your fancy surveillance cameras and security guards can't keep me locked in."

She whistled a cheerful tune and started her trek toward the city streets. Dropping the idiot act felt like shedding a suffocating second skin. Her reappearance in this city served a much larger purpose than exacting petty revenge on Camilla and Martha. That was just a bonus. The pressing priority was locating Gideon Vance. The scheming mother-daughter duo had locked him away three years ago in a desperate grab for power.

Valerie let her mind drift back to the brutal past. She shared no blood with the Vances. Gideon had brought her into the sprawling estate when she was just a lost eleven-year-old girl. She possessed no memories of her life before that age. Her entire history began the moment Gideon gave her the name Valerie.

Roland Vance treated her with icy indifference. Camilla and Martha treated her like a disease. The mother and daughter threw countless tantrums and devised endless lies to convince Gideon to kick the stray child out onto the streets.

Gideon refused to bend to their demands. Instead, he forced Valerie's name into the official Vance family register. He shielded her. To secure her future, he handed over his entire block of shares in the Vance Corporation. That massive thirty percent stake transformed an adopted stray into the second-largest shareholder overnight.

Those shares signed her death warrant. Three years ago, Camilla and Martha lured her out to the remote countryside using Gideon's name as bait. They ambushed her on a steep cliffside. They pushed her over the jagged edge, leaving her for dead in the churning waters below.

Valerie survived the fall. While she clawed her way back to life in the shadows, Camilla and Martha launched the second phase of their plot. They kidnapped Gideon, dragging the elderly man to an unknown black site. They forced him to sign away the very shares he had gifted to Valerie. Roland closed his eyes to the hostile family takeover, letting his wife and daughter run rampant.

Valerie balled her hands into tight fists as she walked through a deserted alleyway. She would find Gideon and burn the Vance family to the ground.

A nondescript black van idled by the curb just ahead. Two beefy thugs sat inside the dark cabin, watching the sidewalk.

The driver grunted and pointed out the window. "Look, someone is here."

"That is her, right?" the passenger asked.

They had accepted a hefty paycheck to kidnap the Thorne family's idiot bride. Declan's extreme security measures had kept them locked out of the estate all week, forcing them to camp in this dingy alley far from any surveillance feeds.

The lead thug stuffed a crumpled photograph of Valerie into his dirty denim jacket. "Yup, that is her. Let's go!"

He slid the van door open, and they both approached her. "Hey, miss, you need to come with us!"

Valerie halted. She lifted her chin and studied their imposing figures. They looked rough, sporting messy clothes and crude expressions. They were a far cry from the elite, disciplined bodyguards Declan kept on his payroll. These were just cheap street enforcers.

Valerie dropped her childish tone, letting a formidable aura radiate outward as she stared them down. "Do I know you?"

"Nope." The second thug sneered.

The leader rolled his eyes in frustration and spat onto the concrete. "Why are you wasting your breath talking to some retard? Grab her right now!"

He lunged forward with his meaty hand, aiming for Valerie's throat. She moved with lethal precision. Slipping gracefully to the side, she dodged his incoming grasp, letting him grab nothing but empty air.

"Dude, she is quick!" the second thug yelled.

The leader gritted his teeth and recovered his balance. "Screw this. Let's grab her together!"

They lunged in unison. Their heavy hands managed to clamp down on Valerie's slender arms. Smug grins flashed across their faces as they believed they had overpowered the helpless girl.

In the blink of an eye, Valerie twisted her wrists with terrifying speed and leverage. She broke their holds and instantly locked her fingers around their thick forearms. She applied a brutal, calculated twist.

Crack!

The sickening sound of snapping bone echoed into the night. Valerie broke their arms as easily as snapping dry twigs. Without missing a beat, she used their forward momentum against them. She tossed their massive bodies onto the hard asphalt like they weighed nothing.

The two thugs rolled on the dirty ground, clutching their unnatural, mangled limbs. Agonized groans escaped their mouths as they squirmed in unbearable pain.

Valerie stared down at her defeated attackers and brushed a speck of dirt off her sleeve. "What a waste of my talents. I wonder who was stupid enough to send the two of you after me."

She stretched her arms elegantly, pacing slightly away from the writhing men. She knew Camilla must be pulling the strings from the shadows. A satisfied smile curved her lips, secure in the fact that she was no longer the weak, naive girl they had pushed off a cliff.

She stood victorious over the broken bodies, the cool night breeze rustling her hair, ready to march over whatever pathetic obstacle stood in her way next.