Chapter 5 - The Frame Job
Silas drove us to a secure, underground office located beneath a high-end art gallery.
The room was filled with humming servers and multiple computer monitors.
He introduced me to a quiet, brilliant hacker named Leo, who worked exclusively for Silas's firm.
I sat down next to Leo and handed him the encrypted flash drive containing my father’s illegal accounting records.
I told Leo I wanted to forge a digital paper trail linking my father directly to the syndicate's missing money.
We spent the next six hours creating a flawless, untraceable web of fake bank transfers.
We made it look like my father had embezzled the syndicate's missing payments and hidden the cash in offshore accounts under his own name.
By sunrise, the digital frame job was complete.
We anonymously leaked the forged financial documents directly to the head of Apex Luxury Holdings.
Silas assured me that the cartel would not bother calling the police to handle an embezzler.
They would handle the problem themselves.
I sat back in the leather chair, feeling a dark, satisfying thrill rush through my veins.
I opened my anonymous social media account and waited for the fallout to begin.
It did not take long.
By noon, Madison posted a frantic, hysterical video from the front lawn of my parents' house.
She was crying uncontrollably, holding her phone with a trembling hand.
In the background, three massive men in dark suits were dragging my father out of the front door.
My mother was screaming on the porch, begging them to stop.
The men threw my father into the back of an unmarked van and sped away.
Madison wailed to her followers that her father had just been kidnapped, and they had absolutely no money to pay the ransom.
I watched the video three times, savoring the absolute destruction of their perfect little family.
They had sold me to the wolves, and now the wolves had arrived at their doorstep.
Silas walked into the room, holding two glasses of expensive champagne.
He handed me a glass and congratulated me on a perfectly executed revenge.
I took a sip, enjoying the taste of total victory.
But my celebration was abruptly interrupted when Silas's private cell phone began to ring.
He answered it, and his triumphant smile instantly vanished.
He lowered the phone, his face draining of all color.
He looked at me with an expression of pure, unadulterated terror.
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He told me the men in the video were not cartel enforcers.
They were federal agents, and they had just arrested my father for the kidnapping and presumed murder of his eldest daughter.
