Chapter 6 - The Decoy Vault
I stood completely frozen at the marble bank counter, my mind struggling to process this impossible information.
Kieran had just held my sister hostage specifically to force me to retrieve a drive from this very bank.
If Kieran truly believed the files were still in the vault, he could not possibly be the one who had just emptied it.
I immediately realized that Constance was playing a completely different, much darker game behind her son's back.
She had somehow forged my signature, bribed the bank officials, and stolen what she thought was the master drive.
I rushed out of the bank and ducked into a crowded coffee shop to call David on the encrypted line.
I explained the terrifying hostage situation and the missing decoy drive.
David frantically typed on his computer, searching for any leverage we could use to save Sarah's life.
He managed to break through the final layer of encryption on the true master drive I still had hidden in my coat.
He gasped loudly over the phone, telling me he had found something far worse than international money laundering.
David had uncovered a highly classified security video from eight years ago, buried deep within the charity's deleted expense files.
The silent footage clearly showed a drunk Kieran Abernathy driving his sports car into a young pedestrian late at night.
The charity funds had been massively depleted the very next day to pay off the corrupt police chief and permanently bury the hit-and-run investigation.
I finally had the ultimate blackmail material to absolutely destroy Kieran's life.
I sent a single screenshot of the horrific video directly to Kieran's personal cell phone.
I demanded that he meet me at an abandoned warehouse by the docks in thirty minutes, or the video would be sent to every news outlet in the state.
Kieran responded immediately, agreeing to bring Sarah to the warehouse completely unharmed.
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But as I pulled up to the dark, rusted building, my heart sank.
A sniper's bright red laser sight painted a deadly dot directly onto my chest, and Constance Abernathy stepped smoothly out of the shadows.
