Chapter 5 - THE HUNTED
"He flipped the narrative," Eleanor breathed, her face turning ghost-white. "He turned the victim into the villain."
"Now the entire NYPD and every bounty hunter in the tri-state area will be looking for Leo," Julian said, horror gripping his chest. "If anyone spots him, they won't ask questions. They'll shoot."
Leo slammed his fist against the wooden wall. "I knew it! I should have stayed on the streets! Coming into your world was a mistake!"
"No, Leo! Look at me!" Eleanor grabbed both of his shoulders, forcing him to meet her eyes. "You are my son. I lost you once because I was weak and naive. I will never lose you again. We are going to fight him."
"How?" Leo yelled bitterly. "He has billions! He has the press! He has the police! What do we have?!"
"We have the truth," Julian said, stepping forward. "And we have something Dad doesn't think we have."
Eleanor and Leo looked at Julian.
"What do you mean?" Eleanor asked.
Julian pulled out his personal tablet, which he had slipped into his coat pocket before they fled. "Dad thinks I'm just a dumb kid who plays video games. But for the last three years, I’ve been coding. I built a backdoor network into the Vance Group's private servers so I could access my trust fund details early."
Leo blinked in surprise. "You hacked your own dad?"
"I was curious!" Julian said defensive, then smiled faintly. "Turns out, my curiosity might save our lives. If Dad forged your death certificate and moved money to pay off Martha Miller, the transaction records have to exist on the secure offshore servers in the Cayman Islands. I can access them."
"Can you do it tonight?" Eleanor asked eagerly.
"I need a high-speed fiber connection and two hours," Julian said, setting the tablet on a dusty dining table. "And I need Dad's private master encryption key."
"Where is that key?" Leo asked.
"He keeps it on a physical USB drive attached to his watch strap," Julian said, his voice sinking. "He never takes it off."
Silence fell over the room. To defeat Arthur, they needed to get close to him again.
Suddenly, the heavy wooden front door of the brownstone shook violently.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
"NYPD! Open up! We know you're in there!" a heavy voice shouted from outside.
Red and blue police lights flashed through the window blinds, painting the dusty room in eerie shades of purple.
Arthur had tracked Eleanor’s old property records faster than they anticipated.
"Back door!" Eleanor whispered urgently.
They sprinted toward the kitchen, but as Leo reached the back door, he saw two armed officers standard in the alleyway behind the house. They were surrounded.
"There's no way out!" Julian panicked.
Leo looked around the kitchen, his street instincts kicking in hyper-drive. He spotted an old laundry chute opening in the wall, leading down into the dark basement, which connected to the neighborhood's old coal delivery tunnels.
"In here! Fast!" Leo yelled, shoving Julian toward the chute.
As Julian and Eleanor slid down into the darkness, the front door splintered open with a deafening crash. Heavy footsteps stormed into the hallway.
Leo stood at the edge of the chute. Before sliding down himself, he looked back at the entrance of the kitchen.
Arthur Vance stepped into the kitchen, wearing a dark trench coat, accompanied by four armed men who were clearly not NYPD officers—they were private mercenaries dressed in tactical gear.
"Leo," Arthur said, his voice echoing in the small room. "Give up. You're a ghost. And ghosts belong in the ground."
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Leo offered a bitter, defiance smile. "See you in hell, Dad."
With that, Leo flipped backward into the dark chute just as a silencer-fitted gunshot shattered the air above him.
