Chapter 7 - The Executor's Betrayal
I pulled the vibrating phone from my pocket and stared at the blocked caller ID with a profound sense of dread.
I slowly answered the call, pressing the speaker tightly against my ear while my heart hammered against my ribs.
"Hello?" I whispered, fully expecting to hear the terrifying voice of the cartel boss known as The Architect.
"Elena, thank God you answered," a frantic, familiar voice gasped on the other end of the line.
It wasn't a cartel boss; it was Mr. Vance, the official financial executor of my late father's massive estate.
"Mr. Vance, what is going on?" I asked, signaling for my attorney to come closer and listen to the call.
"The bank just notified me that someone attempted a hostile override on your father's secondary offshore trust accounts," Vance explained quickly.
"I managed to freeze the accounts temporarily, but we need to meet at my office immediately to secure your remaining assets."
I let out a massive sigh of relief, incredibly grateful that my father had hired such a vigilant and loyal executor.
"I will be at your downtown office in exactly thirty minutes," I promised, quickly ending the call.
I turned to Mr. Sterling, who was already grabbing his leather briefcase to accompany me to the meeting.
"Ryan must have given the cartel the routing numbers to the rest of the estate," I told my attorney as we rushed to my car.
We drove aggressively through the city traffic, arriving at the towering glass high-rise where Vance managed the city's wealthiest clients.
We took the private elevator to the penthouse suite and walked directly into Vance's lavish, mahogany-lined office.
Mr. Vance stood up from his desk, looking incredibly stressed, and gestured for us to sit in the leather chairs opposite him.
"Elena, the situation is much worse than I initially thought," Vance said, leaning heavily over his desk.
"The entity trying to breach the accounts possesses highly classified security clearance codes that only your husband had access to."
I listened intently, nodding my head in agreement, but my eyes suddenly locked onto something resting on Vance's wrist.
As he reached across the desk to hand me a stack of financial documents, the sleeve of his tailored suit pulled back slightly.
He was wearing an incredibly rare, custom-made platinum watch with a highly distinct sapphire watch face.
It was the exact same limited-edition watch Ryan had purchased with my money three months ago, claiming he had lost it on a business trip.
My blood ran entirely cold as the horrifying puzzle pieces slammed violently into place.
Ryan didn't have the security clearance codes to breach my father's highly encrypted secondary trusts.
Only the official executor of the estate had access to those specific override commands.
"You need to sign these transfer authorizations immediately so I can move your money to a safe, untouchable ledger," Vance urged, pushing a pen toward me.
I looked down at the documents, realizing they weren't protective transfer forms at all.
They were irrevocable power of attorney documents that would hand total control of my remaining fortune directly to him.
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Mr. Vance wasn't trying to protect me from the cartel's financial attacks.
He was the inside man who had given Ryan the combination to my father's safe in the first place.
