The black card was a secret brand, its weight a constant reminder in Cameron's pocket. Life at the Reed mansion resumed its oppressive rhythm, but the axis of his world had tilted. He had looked into the eyes of a power that made Richard Reed seem like a petty shopkeeper, and it had changed the balance of everything. His fear was now more intense.
He used the card's number only once, a week after the meeting. From a payphone, he called the security liaison, a man named Graves whose voice was as flat and dry as old parchment. Cameron asked, in a deliberately random way, about legally accessing national missing persons databases. Graves listened in silence, then replied, "Public archives are accessible through library federal terminals. Private investigative databases require a license or client status. Do not attempt to bypass authentication protocols. The penalties are federal." The call lasted fifty-seven seconds. It was not encouragement; it was a map of minefields. Cameron took it as both a warning and stubbornly, a guide. He now knew where the legal lines were drawn.
His runs became longer, more frantic. He was running from the ghosts in his head, from the suffocating silence of the Reed house, and now, from the mesmerizing, terrifying image of Aaron Blackwood against that vast window. The physical exhaustion was the only thing that could briefly quiet the storm inside.
——————
Across the city, in a penthouse office that felt more like a command center, Aaron Blackwood stared at a scanty file on his monitor. It contained everything that could be legally, and some extra-legally, obtained about Cameron Reed in forty-eight hours. It was pathetically thin. Medical records from a few childhood illnesses. School reports noting a shift from "withdrawn" to "recently, notably hardworking." A single grainy camera, still from the library, showing a pale, intense face focused on a screen.
It was the eyes in that photo that had given him pause. Not the face of a teenager plotting corporate infiltration. It was the face of someone reading a verdict. Or a life sentence.
Blackwood was a man who trusted patterns, and Cameron Reed was an anomaly. The sudden academic rise, the hidden financial scraping (his team had found traces of the freelance pseudonym), the desperate, clumsy digital searches...all pointed to a creature backed into a corner. But the corner itself was odd. The Reeds were unpleasant, greedy social climbers, but they were not villains. Yet the boy's desperation had an explosive quality to it, as if he were fleeing not just a bad home, but a specific, known catastrophe.
A soft chime broke his wandering thoughts. His secure line. The ID read: Alexander Sterling.
He accepted the call, activating the video. Alexander Sterling's face filled the screen, his handsome features etched with the usual cool control, though a faint tension lingered around his eyes…a permanent mark since childhood.
"Aaron," Alexander's voice was smooth, a diplomat's tone. "Apologies for the intrusion. I'm finalizing the proposal for the Singapore joint venture. Your team's notes on the regulatory bottlenecks were… unsurprisingly brutal. And correct."
"Efficiency isn't meant to be gentle, Alexander," Aaron replied, his gaze flicking back to Cameron's file for a second before closing it. "Send the revised draft. I'll review it by Thursday."
"I will." Alexander paused, a rare moment of hesitation. "There's another matter. Less concrete. My mother's… anniversary is approaching."
Aaron stilled. He knew the story, as much as anyone outside the family could. The lost Sterling heir. The tragedy that had hollowed out Eleanor Sterling and turned her remaining children into relentless, over-achieving monuments to that loss. It was the one subject where the perfect, impenetrable Sterling facade showed little fractures.
"It's been eighteen years," Alexander continued, his voice dropping a fraction. "The private investigators have hit another dead end. A lead in Europe that dissolved. It's… wearing on her. On all of us." He didn't need to elaborate. Aaron had seen the effect. Benjamin's increasingly uncompromising military posture, Christopher's obsessed dedication to pediatric neurosurgery, Anastasia's bold career choices, they were all frantic searches for purpose, for a way to fill a void that had a specific shape and name.
"I'm sorry, Alexander," Aaron said, and it was one of the few times he meant the empty social phrase. The Sterling family's obsessive grief was a well-known fact in their dealings. It made them fiercely loyal to each other and hostile toward any perceived external threat.
"We'll keep looking," Alexander said, the words a vow that had been repeated for almost two decades. "Anyway, I'll send the Singapore files. Dinner next week? You can insult the new sommelier at Le Pavillon to his face."
"Schedule it with Clara," Aaron said, referring to his assistant. The call ended, Alexander's image fading out.
Aaron leaned back, the sterile silence of his office pressing in. A desperate, searching boy from a hollow family. A powerful, grieving family searching for a lost boy. The city was full of such disconnected parallels, meaningless echoes. Yet, his mind, trained to find leverage and connection, held the two images for a moment: Cameron Reed's hunted eyes, and the bleak determination in Alexander Sterling's today. He dismissed it as algorithmic noise. Sentiment had no place in his calculus.