Chapter 4 - The Inside Job
The horrifying news of the violent explosion at Julian's apartment completely shattered my carefully maintained composure.
I stared blindly at the federal agent, my mind racing through a terrifying maze of grief and overwhelming panic.
Gael and his corrupt partners were clearly not just greedy corporate thieves playing a dangerous financial game.
They were working with highly dangerous individuals who were perfectly willing to commit cold-blooded murder to protect their stolen millions.
I realized that sitting silently in this interrogation room was no longer a safe legal strategy, but a complete death sentence.
I looked directly into the lead agent's eyes and told him that there was a deadly mole operating inside his own federal department.
I explained that nobody outside of this specific building could have possibly known that I was about to contact Julian for help.
The agent's confident posture faltered for a fraction of a second, revealing a tiny glimmer of genuine, terrifying doubt.
I leaned across the metal table and offered him a desperate, highly risky proposition to uncover the absolute truth.
I promised to lead him directly to the physical ledgers that Gael used to launder the money, but only if he temporarily released me from custody.
The agent paced the small room, aggressively weighing the massive risks of trusting a prime corporate suspect.
He finally agreed to grant me a temporary, twenty-four-hour supervised release, but he insisted on personally escorting me to the evidence.
I led him out of the federal building to an unmarked, heavily armored black SUV idling quietly in the dark parking garage.
We drove silently through the rainy city streets toward a highly secure, private storage facility on the industrial outskirts of town.
I had secretly rented a climate-controlled unit under a fake name years ago to store the company's original, unaltered financial hard drives.
I punched a complex numerical code into the heavy steel door of the storage unit, praying that Gael had not discovered this location.
The metal door rolled upward with a loud, grinding screech, revealing the dusty, dimly lit interior of the small room.
I let out a massive sigh of relief when I saw the heavy, fireproof safe sitting completely undisturbed in the back corner.
I quickly spun the mechanical dial, unlocked the heavy steel door, and reached inside to grab the encrypted backup drives.
My fingers brushed against empty air, and I realized with absolute horror that the massive safe was entirely empty.
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A slow, mocking laugh echoed from the dark shadows of the adjacent storage unit, freezing the blood in my veins.
Gael's Chief Financial Officer stepped out into the dim light, holding a suppressed pistol directly against the federal agent's head.
