Chapter 9 - The Final AuditThrough the dissipating smoke, a tall, sharp-featured man stepped into the room, flanked by four heavily armed mercenaries in tactical gear. It was Victor Vance. Behind him, shoved forward by a mercenary, was Paul Mercer—terrified, bleeding from the lip, and shaking uncontrollably.
"Well, well, well," Vance sneered, stepping over the smoking debris of the door. "The great Damian Moretti, trapped like a rat in his own basement. And... Miss Hayes. I must admit, I didn't expect a low-level auditor to be the one holding the keys to my kingdom."
Mercer whimpered, looking frantically at Emma. "Emma! Thank God! Tell them—tell them you have the drive, give it to Mr. Vance, he promised us safe passage!"
Emma looked at her former managing partner with absolute disgust. "You sold me out to be murdered, Paul."
"It was just business!" Mercer sobbed.
"Everything is business to men like you," Damian said softly, his voice cutting through the room like a razor blade. He didn't raise his gun; he held it steady, locked directly on Vance's chest. "You think you won, Victor? Look at the screens."
Vance frowned, glancing up at the monitors.
Emma calmly plugged the drive back into the secondary maintenance terminal behind her back, her fingers hitting a single macro command.
On the central screen, a global broadcast sequence initiated. [SENDING EVIDENCE PACKET TO: DOJ, IRS_CRIMINAL_INVESTIGATION, FBI_FINCRIM_DIV, ALL_CHICAGO_MEDIA_OUTLETS]
"What did you do?" Vance shouted, his face turning pale with absolute horror.
"I just submitted our final audit," Emma said, stepping out from behind the console, her chin held high. "The drive is encrypted, timestamped, and transmitted automatically to every federal prosecutor and major news station in the country. If you kill us now, the kill-switch triggers the backup file, and your entire empire—along with every corrupt politician on your payroll—goes down in flames by sunrise."
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Vance raised his pistol in a blind rage, aiming straight at Emma's heart. "You bitch—!"
Before his finger could pull the trigger, a deafening shot echoed through the room.
