Chapter 6: The Man Who Built the Cage
Callum Voss had no public profile.
That was the first thing Charlotte's attorney, a sharp-edged woman named Grace Ellery, told her when she called back forty minutes later.
"No LinkedIn.
No firm website.
No bar association listing under that name in New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut." Grace's voice was dry and precise, the way it always was when she'd found something that shouldn't be hidden.
"Which means either he's retired, he's operating under a different name professionally, or he's not a licensed attorney at all."
"Renata said he had a legal fraternity ring."
"Plenty of people have rings.
Doesn't make them practicing lawyers." A pause.
"I did find one hit.
A Callum Voss listed as a registered agent for a shell company incorporated in Delaware seven years ago.
The company is called Meridian Holdings LLC."
Charlotte went still.
"Gerald told me Dorian moved my mother's files to a storage facility called Meridian Records."
"Same word.
Different entity — technically.
But registered agents often use variations across multiple shells to keep them linked but deniable." Grace's keyboard clicked in the background.
"I'm pulling the incorporation records now.
Give me ten minutes."
Charlotte stood at the window of her mother's office.
The city below was moving into evening, the light going amber and long across the buildings.
Her phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
*You should have stayed in Geneva.
Last warning.*
She photographed the screen and forwarded it to Grace with a second message: *Add this to the file.*
Then she set the phone face-up on the desk and waited.
Grace called back in eight minutes.
"Meridian Holdings was incorporated with three directors.
Callum Voss as registered agent.
A woman named Petra Sands — I'm still running her.
And the third director—" Grace stopped for just a beat, which was unusual for her.
"Dorian Holt."
"So Dorian controls the storage facility where he sent my mother's files."
"He controls the company that owns the facility, yes.
Which means he controls what goes in, what stays, and what disappears." Another pause.
"Charlotte.
If those files still exist, we need to get to them before he does.
That text you just forwarded — if he's sending warnings, he knows you're moving faster than he expected."
"Can we get a court order for the storage facility?"
"I'm already drafting it.
But judges don't move at night.
We're looking at tomorrow morning at the earliest." Grace's voice dropped slightly.
"Is there anything else in that office that might help us tonight?
Anything Dorian might have missed?"
Charlotte looked around the room.
The desk.
The empty drawers.
The cedar and white tea still drifting through the air.
She crossed to the far wall — a long panel of dark wood that ran floor to ceiling beside the window.
Her mother had always kept it bare.
No artwork, no shelving.
Charlotte had asked about it once, as a child, and her mother had said simply: *Some walls are for thinking against.*
Charlotte pressed her palm flat against the center panel.
It moved.
A quarter inch.
Enough.
She found the edge with her fingers and pulled.
The panel swung out on a concealed hinge, revealing a shallow recess cut into the wall behind it.
Inside: a single metal document box, gray, fireproof, with a combination lock on the front.
Charlotte knew the combination.
Her mother had told it to her on her twenty-first birthday, over dinner, without explanation.
*If you ever need it,* she had said.
*You'll know.*
Charlotte's hands were steady as she turned the dial.
The box opened.
Inside were three items: a sealed envelope with Charlotte's name on it in her mother's handwriting, a USB drive taped to a folded index card, and a second document — this one older, the paper slightly yellowed at the edges — with the Solmere Group letterhead at the top and two signatures at the bottom.
Charlotte recognized one signature immediately.
The other one she had to read twice before it registered.
Callum Voss.
He hadn't just helped Dorian after her mother d*ed.
May you like
His signature on this document was dated eleven years ago.
He had been part of this long before any of it began.
