Chapter 5 - The Trap is Set
Sabrina broke completely. She confessed on tape that Victor had bragged about a "failsafe"—a physical flash drive containing all his original, unencrypted blackmail material and financial ledgers, hidden away in case his servers were ever compromised. He called it his 'insurance.'
If we found that drive, the circumstantial case became an airtight, capital murder conviction.
The problem was, Sabrina didn't know where it was hidden. But I had a pretty good idea of how to make Victor lead me right to it.
I coordinated with Captain Reyes. We needed to flush Victor out of his penthouse, where he was hiding behind a wall of private security.
I used a burner phone to send a single, anonymous text to Victor’s personal device, bypassing his lawyers.
I know about the Swiss chemist. I know about the flash drive in Elise’s childhood home. The police are getting a warrant for the property tomorrow morning. Better clean up your mess.
My parents still owned the old Victorian house on Elm Street, but it had been vacant for renovations since my father fell ill. Victor knew Elise kept her most prized possessions in a hidden floorboard safe in her old bedroom—a safe only she, Victor, and I knew about. It was the perfect place for him to hide his most damning secrets, wrapped in the guise of his wife's nostalgia.
That night, a severe thunderstorm rolled into the city, cloaking Elm Street in darkness.
I sat in an unmarked van across the street, rain lashing against the windshield. Beside me, SWAT team members checked their weapons in tense silence.
“He’s not going to come,” Reyes muttered, sipping cold coffee. “He’s arrogant, not stupid.”
“He’s desperate,” I corrected. “Desperation breeds stupidity.”
May you like
At 1:14 AM, a sleek black sedan rolled down Elm Street with its headlights off. It parked two blocks away. A figure dressed in dark clothing slipped out of the driver's side and moved silently through the torrential rain toward my family’s house.
“Got him,” I whispered.
