Captain Koker stared at his phone screen, reading the ssage for the fifth ti. The number was blocked, untraceable, but the words burned into his mind.
"Your Singapore debts are coming due. Your daughter will pay what you owe."
A threat hanging all over him.
He set the phone down and walked to his office window, looking out at the New York skyline. Singapore. That word kept echoing in his head, dragging up mories he’d buried under years of success and new ventures.
He pressed the intercom. "Bring the Singapore files. Everything from the shutdown."
His assistant’s voice crackled back. "Sir, those files are in storage. It’ll take so ti."
"I don’t care how long it takes. Get them."
Two hours later, boxes lined his office floor. Koker sat among them, pulling out folders and spreading papers across his desk. Employee lists, termination notices, financial statents, legal docunts from the liquidation.
The Singapore operation had been massive, employing hundreds of people, supporting countless families. When he’d shut it down overnight to consolidate operations elsewhere, the fallout had been brutal. He rembered the news coverage, the protests, the desperate phone calls from people begging to keep their jobs.
He’d ignored them all. Business was business.
Now, staring at the nas on these docunts, he wondered which one had his daughter under surveillance in Mumbai. Which one had been patient enough to wait years for revenge.
The list was longer than he wanted to admit. Senior managers who’d lost everything. Junior employees who’d had families to feed. Business partners who’d been forced into bankruptcy when he pulled out without warning. Suppliers who’d collapsed when their biggest client vanished.
His phone rang. Sterling.
"What do you have?" Koker asked.
"More surveillance footage. The SUV has been watching your daughter’s apartnt for at least two weeks, maybe longer. Whoever’s behind this isn’t impulsive. They’re thodical."
"Two weeks. That’s before I even knew she was gone."
"Exactly. I also think they’ve been tracking her before she left New York, or they have incredible resources to locate her that quickly in Mumbai."
Koker rubbed his face. "What about Clearwater? Any connection to Singapore?"
"None. I’ve gone through his entire background. He’s never worked in Singapore, has no ties to anyone from your operations there. Whatever reason Mira hired him, it’s completely separate from whoever’s sending you threats."
"So my daughter has two different problems. The people watching her, and whatever she’s doing that requires a professional disappearance expert."
"That’s how it looks. And sir, about what she’s doing, I found sothing."
Koker sat up straighter. "Tell ."
"I pulled more detailed bank records. Beyond the paynts to Clearwater, there are smaller transactions. Purchases from chemical supply companies, and several paynts to antiquarian bookstores."
"Bookstores? What kind of books?"
"The receipts don’t specify titles, but the stores specialize in rare occult texts, alternative dicine, that sort of thing."
Koker felt cold spreading through his chest. "Occult texts?"
"I know how it sounds. But the pattern is clear. She’s researching sothing specific and buying materials to do sothing with that research."
"What kind of materials?"
Sterling read from his notes. "Laboratory glassware, organic compounds I can’t identify without a chemistry degree, preserved herbs, a calabash which apparently is a type of gourd used in traditional dicine."
"Is she doing drugs?"
"The purchases don’t match any drug manufacturing I’m familiar with. This looks more like soone following old recipes or formulas for sothing."
Koker stood and paced his office, stepping over boxes of Singapore files. "So my seventeen year old daughter flew to Mumbai with two friends, hired a man who specializes in making people vanish, and is buying chemicals and occult books. Does that sound remotely normal to you?"
"No sir, it doesn’t."
"What are the two friends doing? Are they helping her?"
"My contacts haven’t been able to get that close. But they’re staying in the sa apartnt, so presumably they’re involved in whatever she’s planning."
Koker pulled up the photos of Liam and Raquel that Sterling had sent earlier. Two ordinary looking teenagers from Brookside High. What were they doing mixed up in whatever Mira was planning?
"Sterling, I need audio. I need to know what they’re saying in that apartnt."
"I’m working on it. My contact in Mumbai is trying to place listening devices near the apartnt, but it’s risky. If Mira hired Clearwater, he’s probably been trained to watch for surveillance."
"I don’t care about the risk. Do it."
"Understood. I’ll have sothing for you within twenty four hours."
After hanging up, Koker returned to the Singapore files. He started making a list of nas, people who’d lost the most when he shut down operations. Senior executives who’d been publicly humiliated. Partners who’d filed lawsuits that went nowhere. Families who’d lost their hos when the jobs disappeared.
One file caught his attention. Three n who’d been at the center of the Singapore operations. They’d worked together, risen through the ranks together, built their lives around the company. When Koker shut everything down, all three had been left with nothing.
He rembered them vaguely. One had been the operations director, another handled logistics, the third was in finance. They’d tried to buy the Singapore branch from him, offered a decent price, but he’d refused because liquidating was more profitable.
Where were they now? He had Sterling run their nas.
An hour later, Sterling called back. "All three are in New York. Have been for years. They run a small import export business together, barely profitable. No criminal records, no obvious connection to Mumbai."
"But they have motive."
"Plenty of it. You destroyed their careers, their reputations, their financial security. If anyone from Singapore has reason to want revenge, it’s them."
"Are they capable of this kind of operation? Tracking Mira, setting up surveillance in Mumbai?"
"With enough money and determination, anyone’s capable. And sir, there’s sothing else. One of them made a large withdrawal from their business account three months ago. Two hundred thousand dollars."
"Where did it go?"
"That’s what I’m trying to find out. The paper trail goes cold after the withdrawal."
Koker felt pieces clicking together in his mind. Three n with motive, with resources, with ti to plan revenge. But sothing didn’t fit.
"If they wanted to hurt , why go after Mira in Mumbai? Why not just grab her in New York where they could watch her more easily or attack directly?"
"Maybe they didn’t know she was leaving until she was already gone. Or maybe whatever she’s doing in Mumbai plays into their plans sohow."
Before Koker could respond, his phone buzzed with an incoming email from Sterling. "I’m sending you sothing right now," Sterling said. "Audio file from my Mumbai contact. It has rough quality, but you need to hear it."
Koker opened the attachnt and pressed play. Static and ambient noise filled his office, then Mira’s voice ca through, distant but clear.
"Two more doses and it’ll be complete. After that, they won’t rember anything about their old lives."
"Nothing will go wrong. I’ve followed the formula exactly. In a short while, the transformation will be permanent. Then I proceed."
The recording ended.
Koker sat frozen, his hand still hovering over the phone. Two more doses. Permanent transformation. They won’t rember their old lives.
What was his daughter doing?
He called Sterling back imdiately. "Did you hear that?"
"Yes sir. I’ve listened to it three tis. I don’t know what it ans, but it sounds like she’s giving sothing to the two friends. Sothing that affects their mories."
"Is she drugging them?"
"It sounds like it. But I don’t know why or with what."
Koker felt sick. His daughter, his brilliant, stubborn, complicated daughter, was in Mumbai doing sothing to two teenagers that would make them forget their old lives. And he had no idea why.
"Sterling, how fast can you get to Mumbai?"
"I can be on a plane in three hours."
"Do it. Take whatever team you need. I want eyes on that apartnt, I want to know what she’s doing, and I want those two kids safe."
"What about Mira?"
Koker hesitated. What did he want for Mira? To bring her ho? To stop her? To understand why she was doing this?
"Get information first. I need to know what’s happening before I can decide how to handle it."
"Understood. What about the Singapore situation? The people watching her?"
"I’ll handle that from here. If they make contact again, I’ll deal with it. Your priority is getting to Mumbai and figuring out what my daughter is actually doing."
After the call ended, Koker sat alone in his office, surrounded by files from his past and facing a present he didn’t understand. Sowhere in Mumbai, his daughter was transforming two teenagers’ mories for reasons he couldn’t fathom. And sowhere in New York, people from his past were watching, waiting, planning revenge.
He looked at the blocked ssage on his phone again. "Your daughter will pay what you owe."
For the first ti in his career, Captain Viktor Koker felt completely powerless. His money couldn’t fix this. His influence couldn’t reach across oceans fast enough. His business acun ant nothing when faced with a daughter whose motives he didn’t understand and enemies whose faces he couldn’t see.
All he could do was wait for Sterling to get to Mumbai and hope that whatever Mira was doing, it wasn’t too late to stop.
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