I went undercover at my late father’s firm, only to be fired by a man claiming to be the founder’s son. If he’s the heir, then who am I?
“Sign the severance package and hand over your access badge, Miller. Your work here is done.”
Ethan Vance slapped the thick folder onto the polished mahogany desk, his gold signet ring catching the harsh fluorescent light. Around us, the glass walls of the executive suite exposed every floor of Vance Financial Solutions, the multi-billion-dollar investment firm built from scratch by my father, Arthur Vance.
Nobody in this building knew who I was. For the past six months, I had been working undercover as a low-level financial analyst using my mother’s maiden name, Miller. I was hunting down the massive financial discrepancies that had mysteriously appeared in the firm’s ledgers right after my father’s sudden, tragic passing eight months ago. I needed proof before I stepped into my rightful place.
Instead, I was being frog-marched out of the building by a man who had appeared out of nowhere three months ago, claiming to be Arthur Vance’s secret, legitimate heir.
“You can’t fire me, Vance,” I said, keeping my voice steady despite the adrenaline surging through my veins. “I’m in the middle of auditing the Q3 overseas portfolios. There are millions unaccounted for.”
Ethan sneered, stepping closer until he was invading my personal space. “I don’t care what you were auditing. As the founder’s son and acting Chief Executive, my decision is final. You’ve been asking too many questions around the firm, Miller. Pack your desk.”
I stood speechless, my jaw locked. I stared into his face, looking for any trace of my father—a shared jawline, the same steel-blue eyes, anything. There was nothing.
If this arrogant imposter standing in front of me was the founder’s son… then who the hell was I?
I reached into my inner jacket pocket, my fingers brushing against the sealed, original copy of my birth certificate and the DNA test results I had retrieved from my father’s personal safe just yesterday.
“You’re making a mistake,” I whispered, pulling the white envelope halfway out of my jacket.
Ethan’s eyes darted down to the envelope. Before I could pull it completely free, two heavy hands slammed down on my shoulders from behind. Security guards had stepped into the office, blocking the door. Ethan reached over, ripped the envelope straight out of my hands, and slid his thumb under the seal.
My world turned completely upside down in that office, but what happened next at the emergency board meeting revealed an even darker truth.
Ethan tore open the envelope, scanning the documents inside. For a split second, a flash of genuine panic flickered across his eyes. But as quickly as it appeared, it vanished, replaced by a cruel smirk. He tore the paper into four pieces and dropped them into the shredder next to his desk. The machine devoured the proof of my identity in seconds.
“Security, escort Mr. Miller out of the building immediately,” Ethan commanded cold voice. “If he steps foot on this property again, have him arrested for corporate espionage.”
The guards shoved me toward the private elevator. My mind raced as the doors slid shut. Losing those physical copies was a setback, but Ethan had just confirmed my worst fear: he knew exactly who I was, and he was terrified of the truth coming out. But how had he managed to convince the entire board of directors, including my father’s most trusted legal advisors, that he was Arthur Vance’s long-lost child?
I didn’t leave the building. Instead, I used my duplicate service key to slip into the basement server room. My hands shook as I plugged my encrypted drive into the central database. If Ethan was falsifying records, the digital trail had to exist somewhere on the internal mainframes before he cleared them.
Twenty minutes later, a set of encrypted emails popped up on my screen, sent from my late father’s private server just days before his car accident. My blood ran cold as I opened the top file.
It wasn’t a record of adoption. It was a formal extortion demand.
Someone had been blackmailing my father with altered medical documents, threatening to destroy the firm’s stock value unless my father signed over temporary executive power to a designated trustee in the event of his death. Attached to the bottom of the email was a scanned photo of Ethan—standing next to my father’s senior Vice President, Marcus Vance, my father’s estranged brother.
Suddenly, the heavy metal door of the server room burst open. The lights snapped off, plunging the room into darkness except for the glow of my monitor. Heavy footsteps echoed off the concrete floor, approaching my row of servers.
