Chapter 2 - The Treason Trap
The shower was still running loudly in the background.
I stared at the glowing screen of my phone, trying to comprehend the sheer scale of the betrayal.
Ryan had spent years siphoning government funds through my security clearance.
He had framed a seventy-one-year-old widow to take the fall for federal treason.
His brutal attack tonight was not an accident or a crime of passion.
It was a calculated assassination attempt designed to silence the only patsy he had left.
If my mother died, the offshore accounts would automatically transfer to her next of kin.
I quickly downloaded all the files to a secure cloud server and placed the drive back into his boot.
I stepped into the shower, let the cold water hit my face, and changed into civilian clothes.
When I walked back into the bedroom, Ryan was sitting on the edge of the mattress.
He offered me a warm, comforting smile that made me sick to my stomach.
He suggested we leave the country for a few weeks to let the police handle my mother's mental breakdown.
I told him I needed to stop by the base first to submit my emergency leave paperwork.
I left the house and drove aggressively toward the heavily guarded gates of Fort Meade.
I needed to hand this evidence directly to General Vance, my commanding officer.
When I walked into the command center, the atmosphere was terrifyingly tense.
Four heavily armed military police officers immediately surrounded me.
General Vance stepped out of his office, looking at me with absolute disgust.
He ordered the officers to strip me of my weapon and place me under military arrest.
I screamed that I had proof of a massive financial conspiracy orchestrated by my husband.
Vance shook his head and threw a thick manila envelope onto the table.
He told me they had just received an anonymous tip linking me to thirty-five million missing dollars.
He opened the folder and pulled out a stack of authorization forms with my signature perfectly forged on every page.
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I realized then that Ryan had not just framed my mother.
He had framed me as the mastermind, and he had just bought himself all the time he needed to escape.
