Chapter 2 - The Digital Trail
Skylar sat on the edge of a stiff hotel bed, pressing a fresh ice pack against the agonizing, blistered skin on her left cheek.
Her brand new laptop was glowing brightly in the dark room, displaying a live feed from the security camera she had secretly installed last week.
She watched Derek furiously tearing the apartment apart, kicking the remaining dining chairs and screaming obscenities at the walls.
Suzanne was pacing frantically behind him, biting her nails and crying about how she was going to pay for her luxury car lease now.
Skylar felt absolutely no pity for either of them as she typed a complex password into her encrypted corporate database.
She had spent the entire afternoon sitting in a private room at the local police precinct, laying out every single piece of evidence.
The detective had promised her that a warrant for Derek’s arrest would be issued by a judge first thing in the morning.
But Skylar knew that waiting for the slow wheels of the justice system was a dangerous game when dealing with a desperate man.
She opened the hidden financial files she had extracted from Derek’s personal computer before packing up her life.
For months, she had suspected that his insurance salesman job was merely a clever front for something far more sinister.
The spreadsheets revealed a massive, highly sophisticated money-laundering operation funneling funds through offshore shell companies.
He had been using Skylar’s spotless credit history and her apartment address to legitimize his illegal transactions.
She quickly copied the digital ledgers onto three separate external hard drives to ensure they could never be destroyed.
Suddenly, her cell phone began to vibrate violently on the nightstand, displaying an unknown caller ID.
She hesitated for a brief moment before swiping the screen to accept the late-night call.
A deep, unfamiliar voice echoed through the speaker, devoid of any human emotion.
The man calmly informed her that Derek owed his employers a significant amount of money, and now they expected her to pay his massive debt.
If she went to the police with the financial files, the man promised that the boiling coffee would be the least of her worries.
Skylar’s heart slammed against her ribs as she realized she had just stumbled into a deadly criminal syndicate.
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Before she could hang up the phone, a deafening crash echoed from the hotel hallway right outside her door.
The heavy wooden door to her room began to splinter and crack as someone aggressively kicked the lock from the outside.
