Chapter 7 - The Counter-Strike at Dawn
I didn’t cry. The tears had run dry, replaced by a cold, incandescent fury that burned hotter than any fire.
“Detective,” I said, standing up so fast my chair screeched against the floor. “My mother thinks she’s still playing chess by her own rules. But she forgot one very important detail.”
Detective Miller looked up, intrigued. “What’s that?”
“She told me to check my corporate email.” I pulled out my smartphone, my fingers flying across the screen with lethal precision. “When Arthur Sterling forced my promotion through last week, he made one fatal corporate compliance error. He used his personal executive override code to bypass the two-factor authentication protocol so the transfer would clear before the quarterly audit.”
I spun my phone around and laid it on the metal table.
On the screen was an encrypted financial forensic audit log generated by our company’s internal whistle-blower portal—a portal I had secretly helped design during my master’s program in corporate governance.
“What am I looking at?” Detective Miller asked.
“You’re looking at Arthur Sterling’s personal embezzlement ledger,” I smiled grimly. “He wasn't just funding my mother’s trust through legitimate estate disbursements. He was laundering illicit venture capital funds through my mother’s suburban home account to hide millions in undeclared corporate assets from federal regulators.”
The detective’s eyes widened. “You have access to his master server?”
“Better,” I said. “I have the master encryption keys. And right now, while my mother sits in a holding cell thinking she’s won, my automated security script is dumping every single transaction, text message, and offshore wire transfer directly into the secure inbox of the federal grand jury currently investigating our firm.”
As if on cue, my phone buzzed violently in my hand.
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A high-priority push notification flashed across the screen: FEDERAL GRAND JURY SUBPOENA ISSUED: ARTHUR STERLING & ASSOCIATES. ASSETS FROZEN EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.
“Well,” Detective Miller whistled softly, leaning back in his chair with a slow, appreciative grin. “It looks like Mom’s trust fund just went bankrupt.”
