Chapter 3 - The Exposed BlueprintKhalid Al-Rashid’s expression turned from suspicion to stone. He slowly pulled his hand away from the door, walked back to the head of the table, and sank back into his leather chair, resting his chin on his steepled fingers.
“Show me,” Khalid commanded quietly, looking directly at me.
Without hesitation, I reached into the pocket of my black waitress apron, pulled out my smartphone, and tapped the screen twice.
Instantly, the private room’s smart-screen projector—which the Cole family had been using to display their flattering corporate PowerPoint slides—flickered. The display vanished, replaced by high-resolution scans of Vincent Hale’s handwritten markup notes, internal corporate emails between Richard and Trevor, and bank records proving that Cole Meridian Hospitality was on the verge of bankruptcy due to reckless embezzlement.
Trevor leaped to his feet, knocking his chair over backward. “That’s private property! You hacked our systems—!”
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“No, Trevor,” I interrupted, standing up tall and looking down at him with quiet pity. “Your father taught you how to lie, but he never taught you how to clean up after yourselves. You left your files in a public restaurant workspace. In the state of New York, documents left behind in a commercial service area are fair game for custodial recovery.”
Vincent buried his face in his hands, muttering curses under his breath. The multi-million-dollar fraud they had spent eight months orchestrating was unraveling in less than five minutes, dismantled by a woman wearing an apron.
