Chapter 8 - The Decrypted Truth
Daniel slowly backed away from the broken window, his face completely drained of any remaining color.
Dozens of heavily armed cartel mercenaries were swarming the manicured lawn, raising their assault rifles toward the study.
I ripped a piece of fabric from my torn dress and tied it tightly around Ethan's bleeding shoulder, praying the wound was not fatal.
Ethan gritted his teeth in agonizing pain, struggling to stay conscious as he handed me a small, encrypted USB drive from his pocket.
He whispered that the physical ledger was just a decoy, and this tiny drive contained the actual evidence of his mother's massive embezzlement scheme.
He told me the password to unlock the files was the exact date of my final national championship twelve years ago.
I felt a massive wave of intense emotion crash over me, realizing how deeply he had cared for me from afar all these years.
I quickly plugged the drive into Vivian's computer on the desk, my bloody fingers flying rapidly across the sleek keyboard.
I typed in the date of my greatest triumph, and the screen instantly unlocked, revealing thousands of damning financial documents.
I quickly forwarded the entire unencrypted folder directly to the FBI tip line and the major news outlets in Chicago.
Daniel watched me hit the send button, realizing his desperate chance to steal the Ashford empire was completely gone forever.
He looked at me with a strange, broken expression, heavily weighed down by twelve years of unbearable guilt.
The heavy wooden doors of the study suddenly began to splinter as the cartel mercenaries started axing their way inside.
Ethan weakly pulled his tactical pistol, preparing to fight to the bitter end to protect me.
I held his hand tightly, our fingers completely intertwined as we faced certain death together.
Daniel suddenly grabbed the heavy, decoy ledger and sprinted directly toward the splintering doors.
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He shouted that he was going to buy us exactly sixty seconds to escape through the hidden panel in the floorboards.
He kicked the ruined doors open and charged headfirst into the hallway, screaming at the heavily armed men.
