00:00Maya stared at the faded photograph on Marcus's phone, a much younger Edmund Hale standing beside a man she recognized
00:07only from a single worn picture her mother had kept hidden in a shoebox for most of Maya's childhood.
00:14That's my father, she whispered, but he left when I was three. My mother never talked about him. I don't
00:21even know his full name. She always just called him gone.
00:25Marcus zoomed into the image, studying the background details. This was taken outside a shipping office. There's a logo on
00:33the building behind them. I recognize it.
00:36It's an old subsidiary of the Ashworth family's original trade operation, before Lawrence Ashworth took over leadership.
00:44So my father worked with the Ashworth family, Maya said slowly, and with Edmund Hale, decades before any of this
00:51happened.
00:52Maya, Marcus said carefully, I don't think your involvement in Adrian's accident was random at all. I think it may
01:00go back much further than any of us realized.
01:04Maya's hands shook as she dialed her mother's number, pacing the corridor outside the council chamber, while Marcus continued digging
01:12through old shipping records on his laptop.
01:15Mom, Maya said the moment the call connected. I need you to tell me the truth about Dad. All of
01:22it. Right now. There was a long pause on the other end.
01:27Maya, why are you asking me this after 20 years?
01:29Because his name just showed up in the middle of something dangerous, Maya said. Something involving people who might already
01:37know things about our family that I don't.
01:39Her mother's voice, when it finally came, was quiet and tired in a way Maya had never heard before.
01:46Your father's name was Daniel Reyes. He worked as a shipping coordinator for a trade company when we met.
01:53He didn't leave because he wanted to. Maya, he left because he got involved in something he couldn't get out
01:59of, and he was terrified it would put us in danger if he stayed.
02:03What kind of something? Maya pressed.
02:07He never told me everything. Her mother admitted.
02:10Just that he'd discovered irregularities in the shipping manifests he processed.
02:15Numbers that didn't add up. Cargo that didn't match the paperwork.
02:19He mentioned a name once. A colleague he trusted, who helped him understand what he'd found.
02:25Edmund. I never knew his last name.
02:28Maya's breath caught.
02:30Edmund Hale.
02:32He said Edmund warned him it was too dangerous to go to the authorities directly.
02:37Her mother continued.
02:38Said there were people connected to a very powerful family who wouldn't hesitate to make problems disappear.
02:44Two weeks later, your father was gone. He sent money for years afterward, anonymously, but he never came back, and
02:53he never explained further.
02:54I always assumed he was protecting us from something he never wanted us to understand.
03:00Maya relayed everything to Marcus, who cross-referenced the timeline against the records he'd already gathered on Edmund Hale's early
03:08career.
03:08This tracks, Marcus said grimly.
03:1223 years ago, Edmund Hale was a junior compliance officer at the same shipping subsidiary your father worked for, years
03:20before he ever became the king's private secretary.
03:22If they uncovered financial irregularities together back then, and those irregularities traced back to the same falsified manifests Isabel found
03:32three years ago,
03:33then Edmund's been sitting on evidence of this exact same corruption for over 20 years, Maya finished, long before he
03:41ever had a personal grievance against the king.
03:44Which means the trade fraud isn't new, Marcus said.
03:48It isn't even really about the Ashworth family, or Lawrence, or any of the immediate players we've dealt with so
03:55far.
03:55This goes back to something much older, and Edmund has been quietly building leverage against it for two decades.
04:02But why involve me specifically?
04:04Maya asked.
04:05The question that had haunted her since the very first VIP car request.
04:09If this is about old corruption my father stumbled onto, why arrange for me, of all people, to be behind
04:16the wheel the night of Adrian's accident?
04:19Marcus was quiet for a moment, piecing it together carefully.
04:23Think about it from Edmund's perspective.
04:25He needed someone connected, even distantly, to the original corruption.
04:30Someone whose family history he could eventually use as additional leverage, if his primary plan against the king ever needed
04:38reinforcement.
04:39Your father's disappearance and his knowledge of the fraud made you the perfect, unknowing asset.
04:45He didn't just want a scandal, Maya said slowly.
04:49Horror dawning.
04:51He wanted someone he could eventually connect to the original corruption to.
04:55In case exposing his own illegitimate birth wasn't enough leverage on its own.
05:01A back-up plan, Marcus said.
05:04Insurance.
05:04In case the king caught his bluff about Edmund's own claim.
05:08Inside the chamber, the formal legitimization proceedings continued.
05:13King Frederick answering increasingly pointed questions about the shipping fraud, now being connected to Edmund's original grievance.
05:22Adrian.
05:22Growing visibly frustrated with the slow pace of bureaucratic process, while Tommy remained missing.
05:30Finally interrupted.
05:31With respect to this entire chamber, Adrian said.
05:35We can resolve questions of legitimacy and succession for weeks if necessary.
05:40Right now, a 12-year-old boy is missing.
05:42Likely being used as a pawn in a 20-year-old corruption scheme.
05:46None of us fully understand yet.
05:48I would ask this council to authorize full crown investigative resources toward finding him immediately, and to continue these proceedings
05:56in parallel rather than in sequence.
05:58Lord Bertrand exchanged a glance with the other council members before nodding slowly, authorized, effective immediately.
06:07As the council authorized new resources, Marcus's phone buzzed with an alert from Palace Surveillance, a live feed from a
06:15public plaza near the Eastern District.
06:22We have a hit, Marcus said, turning the screen toward Maya.
06:26Edmund Hale, spotted 11 minutes ago, moving through a crowded market district.
06:32He's not alone.
06:34The grainy footage showed Edmund walking briskly, alongside a young boy who matched Tommy's description exactly.
06:42Both of them weaving through the crowd with the practised ease of people trying not to draw attention.
06:49He's still with them, Maya breathed.
06:51They're close.
06:52We can still catch them.
06:54There's something else, Marcus said, his expression darkening as he paused the footage on a third figure, trailing several yards
07:02behind Edmund and Tommy, someone clearly following them, clearly unnoticed by either one.
07:08Marcus zoomed in on the trailing figure's face.
07:12And the image sharpened just enough for recognition to hit both of them at once.
07:16That's not palace security, Marcus said slowly.
07:20And it's not one of Lawrence Ashworth's people either.
07:23I've never seen this man before in my life.
07:27Maya leaned closer to the screen, studying the stranger's face.
07:31Calm, focused, moving through the crowd with the same careful precision Marcus himself always used.
07:38Marcus, she said quietly.
07:41He's not just following them.
07:43Look at his hand.
07:44Marcus zoomed further.
07:46And the image resolved just enough to reveal what the stranger was carrying, half concealed beneath his jacket as he
07:53closed the distance toward Edmund and Tommy.
07:56Whoever that is, Marcus said grimly, already moving toward the door.
08:01He's not here to rescue anyone.
08:03Coming up in episode 17, the third man.
08:06Maya and Marcus race through the crowded market district to reach Tommy before an unknown armed pursuer closes in on
08:14Edmund first.
08:15He was, you know, having a high speed bumping and on his mind of his job too we have covered
08:15solely before an unknown resource.
08:15And also, in other words,ге centered again from his head to the wall that hewned him.
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