Chapter 13 - The Hidden Ledger
I stare at the silver drive, realizing how dangerously close the intruders came to finding it.
If Daniel's enemies are searching my dorm, it means the FBI did not find everything during their raids.
This drive is the real reason Daniel set up the trust fund.
I am not just his daughter; I am his insurance policy.
I know I cannot take this to the authorities.
The FBI is riddled with bureaucratic leaks, and if the syndicate remnants find out I have the drive, I am dead.
I need someone who can crack military-grade encryption without asking questions.
I need Liam.
I pack a duffel bag, leave my destroyed dorm room, and head straight to Liam's off-campus apartment.
I bang on his door at two in the morning.
He opens it, looking sleepy and confused in a gray t-shirt and sweatpants.
"Emma? What are you doing here?" he asks, his eyes filled with concern.
I push past him into his living room and lock the door behind me.
"I need your help," I say, pulling the titanium drive from my pocket.
"And I need you to promise that you will never tell a single soul what you are about to see."
Liam's sleepy demeanor vanishes instantly.
He sees the absolute terror in my eyes and nods slowly.
He leads me to his messy bedroom, which is dominated by a massive custom-built computer rig with three monitors.
He plugs the drive in.
A stark black screen pops up, demanding a sixty-four-character alphanumeric password.
"This is heavily encrypted, Emma," Liam says, his fingers hovering over the keyboard.
"This isn't standard commercial security.
If I enter the wrong password three times, the drive will permanently fry its own internal circuits."
I pace the room, my mind racing.
A sixty-four-character password.
Daniel is arrogant, calculating, and obsessed with legacy.
I pull out the faded Polaroid photograph from my jacket. I look at the back.
There is a string of numbers beneath his handwriting.
It looks like a date and a set of coordinates.
"Try this," I say, reading the numbers off the back of the photo, combining them with the exact date and time of the trust fund's creation, which I memorized from the legal documents.
Liam types furiously, translating my words into the complex string.
He hits enter.
The screen freezes for an agonizing ten seconds.
May you like
Then, a progress bar appears.
Access Granted.
