Chapter 9 - Face to FaceThe heavy metal door of the holding room clicked open.
Chloe looked up as Nathan stepped inside. For a split second, a flicker of her old, manipulative charm flashed across her face—a pathetic attempt to twist the narrative.
"Nathan..." she whimpered, her voice dripping with fake honey. "You have to listen to me. Marcus forced me into this! He threatened my life! I loved you, Nathan. The family we built... it wasn't all a lie!"
Nathan walked slowly around the table, stopping right beside her chair. He didn't shout. He didn't raise his hand. He simply leaned down until his lips were inches from her ear.
"Elena was a brilliant woman," Nathan whispered, his voice as cold as arctic ice. "She loved our children. She loved me. And every single day you sat at our dinner table, every single night you kissed my cheek while plotting to steal from my dead wife's legacy... you signed your own ticket."
Chloe stopped faking. The tears vanished instantly, replaced by a twisted, venomous smirk.
"You can lock me up all you want, Nathan," Chloe hissed softly, her eyes flashing with malice. "You think you've won? Marcus and I offshore-transferred half of those funds into untouchable cryptocurrency wallets yesterday morning. Even if we spend twenty years in a maximum-security cell, when we get out, we'll still be multi-millionaires. And your children? They'll grow up knowing their stepmother was the one who sent their real mother to the bottom of the ocean."
Nathan didn't flinch. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out the titanium flash drive, and placed it gently on the metal table right in front of her.
Chloe’s eyes widened as she stared at the drive.
"What is that?" she whispered, panic creeping back into her voice.
"That's the master decryption key to your offshore crypto wallets," Nathan said smoothly, a grim smile touching the corner of his lips. "When I downloaded it from Elena's secret hardware vault tonight, I didn't just copy the files. I triggered an automated smart-contract protocol directly linked to federal asset-recovery divisions."
Chloe’s face turned completely white. "No... that's impossible."
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"As of three minutes ago," Nathan whispered, leaning in closer, "every single cent of your thirty million dollars has been legally seized by the government. Your accounts are frozen. Your offshore nodes are burned. You and your brother are completely, utterly broke."
Chloe let out a blood-curdling shriek of pure rage and lunged across the table, her fingernails clawing wildly toward Nathan's face, only for the heavy steel restraints to jerk her back violently as guards rushed into the room to pull her away.
