Chapter 6 - The Digital Heist
I stared at the red progress bar racing across my monitor.
Marcus had initiated a catastrophic financial hemorrhage the moment Brandon submitted the forged LLC documents.
The friction ink I used would legally invalidate the contract eventually, but the digital theft was happening in real time.
I typed frantically, trying to initiate a hard server shutdown, but Marcus had locked me out of my own mainframe.
“Think, Madison, think,” I muttered to myself, my fingers hovering over the keyboard.
I remembered a failsafe protocol my paranoid father had installed in the basement servers twenty years ago.
It was an analog kill switch that physically severed the building's connection to the global banking network.
I sprinted out of the ruined study, sprinting down the grand staircase toward the cellar.
I bypassed the bloody closet where Ethan had been trapped and ran to the reinforced steel door at the back.
I punched in the eight-digit alphanumeric code, praying Marcus had not bothered to change it.
The heavy door hissed open, revealing rows of blinking, humming server racks.
I ran to the main terminal box mounted on the far wall.
Behind a shattered glass panel was a heavy, industrial red lever.
I grabbed the metal handle and pulled it downward with all my strength.
A massive shower of sparks erupted from the ceiling as the server room plunged into total darkness.
The humming stopped instantly.
I pulled out my phone and used the cellular network to check my offshore bank balances.
The transfer had been stopped at ninety percent.
I had lost three hundred million dollars, but the core foundation of my empire was intact.
I breathed a heavy sigh of relief, leaning against the cold concrete wall.
My phone suddenly vibrated in my hand, displaying an incoming call from a blocked number.
I answered it, expecting Marcus to be calling to gloat or threaten me.
Instead, a digitized, heavily modulated voice spoke through the speaker.
“Stopping the transfer was a clever trick, Madison, but you only delayed the inevitable,” the robotic voice mocked.
“Who is this?” I demanded, recognizing the cadence of the speech but unable to place it.
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“You will find out tonight at the corporate gala,” the voice replied.
“If you do not show up alone and hand over the master encryption keys, we will detonate the explosive device currently attached to the bottom of Ethan’s safehouse.”
