INTERLUDE: Shadows and Bloodlines

A Bar in Singapore

The music was too lively for the hour, fast, electronic, and mismatched with the sleepy drag of midnight. Behind the bar, the bartender was rambling again, recounting for the third time how a K-pop star once tipped him with a designer watch he still wore.

At the far end, beneath a flickering neon sign that read Lucky Shot, a man sat alone in a booth steeped in shadow. He sipped neat bourbon in silence, not watching the door, only listening.

The bell above the entrance chimed and a man walked in. Tailored suit. Silver-streaked hair. His steps unhurried, his eyes focused. He didn't scan the bar. He already knew where to go.

Richard Calhoun didn't speak until he reached the booth. "You really picked Singapore?"

The man gave a wry smile without standing. "Neutral ground. No flags, no questions. Even ghosts lose interest this far out."

Richard slid into the booth across from him.

"You've kept your head down," the man said, swirling his drink lazily. "Years off the grid. And yet... you show up. Like a man who's hearing footsteps."

Richard didn't bite. "You said you had intel."

"I do." The man leaned forward slightly. "They've failed again. Seoul, Jakarta, Stuttgart. All their test models burned out. Just like before."

Richard said nothing.

"They're still using your original framework," the man went on. "Trying to reverse-engineer the heart of something they never understood. And each time they fail, their desperation grows."

"They never learned the balancing core," Richard said. "You can't replicate what you don't understand."

"And yet," the man said, reaching into his coat, "they won't stop trying."

He slid a slim black folder across the table.

Richard opened it. Grainy surveillance images. Technical blueprints. Coded messages. He paused at a satellite photo, an underground facility nestled deep in the mountains near the Thai-Myanmar border. Another showed a burned-out lab in Bavaria. Names, numbers, aliases, some he recognized, most he didn't.

"They've gotten smarter," Richard murmured. "More careful."

"Richer, too," the man added. "New investors. New muscle. And according to this... "he tapped the edge of the folder, "a plan to build something stronger. Or at least, more dangerous."

He waited a beat, then added, more gravely, "There's more."

Richard looked up.

"Engineers," the man said. "Automotive experts. EV specialists. Disappearing. Quietly. Off the map."

Richard narrowed his eyes. "How many?"

"Enough to draw a pattern. One from Volvo. Two from Kia's European lab. A Tesla designer went missing after a so called hiking accident in Colorado. And last week... " he paused, "a software engineer from Ford, from the old hybrid division. You want to guess the common link?"

Richard's hand curled slightly around his glass.

"They all worked on next gen EV tech. Battery architecture. Charge balancing. Core stability." He met Richard's gaze. "Every one of them touched a corner of something that vaguely resembled your design. And now they're gone."

"Still no leads on who's behind it?" Richard asked, quieter now.

"No names. No faces. Just signatures and shadows," the man replied. "But it's not just about power anymore. They've started asking the wrong kind of questions. Which brings me to one of my own."

He looked Richard squarely in the eye.

"Do you still have it? The original?"

Richard's expression didn't change. "I told you. I destroyed it. Years ago."

"You said that before," the man said evenly. "But they don't believe it. And frankly, I'm not sure I do either."

"I don't care what they believe," Richard said, voice tight. "It's gone."

The man held his gaze for a moment, then leaned back. "They think it still exists. A copy. A prototype. Something, anything. They're combing through everything you ever touched."

Richard shut the folder. "Then they'll find nothing."

The man nodded slowly. "Maybe. But they're not stopping there. When they can't find the tech, they'll go after anything that touched it. Anyone."

Richard's voice dropped to a low and cold edge. "My family has nothing to do with this."

"That's what you think."

Richard stiffened.

The man continued, quietly, "You've kept them off the grid. No trace. I respect that. But sooner or later, someone's going to start asking the right question: How did Calhoun disappear? And who did he leave behind?"

Richard's jaw flexed.

"You don't want to involve them?" the man asked. "Then tell me what happens when someone else does?"

Richard stood. His hands were steady, his face unreadable. "They won't find them."

"They're already looking," the man said. "And they're getting close to places you once called home."

Richard turned toward the exit.

"One last thing," the man called after him. "You can hide. You can run. But if they figure out you had a daughter..."

Richard stopped in his tracks.

"...you won't be able to outrun what's coming."

But Richard said nothing. He simply walked into the humid Singapore night, the folder left untouched on the table behind him.

******************

Vale Estate, Detroit

Serena couldn't shake it, the feeling something still didn't add up. Alex, his secrets, her mother's warnings, the envelope she once saw in Miranda's office but never opened.

She waited until Miranda retired to bed. Then, like a daughter fed up with half truths, she returned to her mother's home office.

She opened the office door gently.

This time she didn't feel like a daughter. She felt like someone desperate for air in a house built of secrets.

She went to the drawer. The same one from days ago and it was unlocked.

Inside, behind the photo frame of her first internship, behind old letters and speeches, was the envelope she remembered, thick, cream colored, heavier than it should've been.

She tore the seal and opened it slowly.

The first thing she saw was a photograph. An older man, mid-50s, sharp features. He was standing beside a vintage Ford GT, arms crossed, eyes straight at the camera, eyes that looked uncomfortably like her own.

But the second photo she saw stole her breath.

A younger version of Miranda, standing beside this same man, this time, a younger version of him too, with a familiar eyes, her eyes.

Beneath the photos was a single page letter. Handwritten.

Miranda,

By the time you read this, I'll be deep in the final stages of something that's consumed far too many years of my life. I never meant to disappear without a trace, but I had no choice. You know that at least, I hope you do.

I've never stopped thinking about you. Or her.

Thank you for the photos... the updates... the small reminders that a life once waited for me. They meant more than you'll ever know.

I'm not writing to reopen old wounds, only to say, if I make it through this... if I finally win, I'll come home. And I'll explain everything.

But if I don't... if I disappear for good... someone else will come with the truth. She deserves that much. You both do.

I'm sorry, Miranda. Not for loving you, but for not being strong enough to stay.

_Richard Calhoun

Serena's hands trembled. She didn't notice the tears until one hit the paper.

"Richard... Calhoun," she whispered.

Her lips parted like the name itself weighed too much to hold.

"My father?"

Her knees buckled, and she sat slowly in the chair behind her.

The room was suddenly too small. The air, too heavy.

She reached back into the envelope. Tucked inside a second flap was a third photograph, older and faded.

A black and white headshot of Richard Calhoun, likely from his days at Ford. On the back, in faded typewriter ink:

Richard Calhoun – Vollen-Ford Advanced Engineering, Western Asia Division – Confidential ID 8427-C

She stared at the name. The photograph. Her fingers brushed over his printed name again and again, trying to memorize it like a prayer.

*****************

Dubai, 03:42 A.M. (Gulf Standard Time)

Private rooftop terrace, Vollen International Towers

The city below sparkled, gold towers, glass roads, and the humming rhythm of luxury that never slept.

Anastasia Vollen didn't sleep either.

Wrapped in a silk robe and staring out over the city skyline, she sipped from a glass of rosé that had long gone warm. Her platinum hair, pulled into a high knot, still had that just-left-the-salon gloss. But her eyes were cool, calculating, blue like frost on steel and were fixed on the silent screen embedded in her glass table.

A security cam feed from an airport lounge flickered to life. A man was visible on screen, laughing into a phone call. Not Alex but someone close, someone connected to him.

She tapped the screen.

"Pause."

The image froze.

She studied the background, the boarding gate and the briefcase brand. Then she smiled.

"Found you," she whispered.

A voice behind her interrupted. "Still hunting shadows, Stasia?"

Anastasia turned. A man in a perfectly tailored burgundy suit stepped into the glow of the terrace lights, her older brother, Lucien Vollen, CEO of the Vollen Group and co-architect of her reputation.

"He's not a shadow," Anastasia replied without missing a beat. "He's a missing signature. And missing signatures stall mergers."

Lucien leaned on the railing, scanning the city below. "Still obsessed with Ford? Five years, Anastasia. He ran. You clearly saw it."

"He didn't run," Anastasia said, sipping again. "He disappeared."

Lucien laughed. "Because he wanted to. Because he didn't want the deal or you."

Anastasia set the glass down hard enough to clink. "He didn't want them. Not me."

"It's all the same Stacia."

"No." Her voice dropped. "You weren't there when his father came begging for another merger between the Ford and Vollen Groups. You didn't see how desperate the Fords were to stay in power. You didn't hear what his mother promised ours."

Lucien didn't respond.

Anastasia stood, her robe fluttering slightly in the warm desert breeze. "The world thinks the Fords are untouchable. That their empire is inherited. It's not. It's stitched together with alliances, secrets, and fragile egos."

"Then why chase him?" Lucien asked, folding his arms.

"Because he's the last missing piece."

Lucien scoffed. "And if he still refuses?"

Anastasia smiled faintly and walked toward a silver case beside the terrace wall. She opened it, revealing a velvet lined compartment. Inside were photographs, old engagement announcements, even handwritten notes exchanged between her and Alex from years ago.

She held one up, a torn piece of hotel stationery with Alex's handwriting on it. Just one sentence:

"I never wanted any of this, I just wanted you to be real."

Anastasia stared at the words but not too fondly, then she folded the note back into it's case.

"If he refuses," she said softly."Then he'll learn what happens when you run from a Vollen."

Lucien didn't speak for a while. Then he asked, "And what about the girl?"

Anastasia didn't blink. "Which one?"

"The one he's hiding with now."

Anastasia's smile sharpened into something colder than calculation.

"She'll never see it coming."