Chapter 4 - The Venomous Alliance
I scrambled to silence my phone, my heart pounding so hard I thought it would burst through my ribs. Just as Clara reached the edge of the desk, my phone went silent.
Before she could bend down to look, the loud fire alarm of the building suddenly shrieked.
The overhead sprinklers didn't turn on, but the flashing red lights and deafening alarm sent Clara into a panic. “Ugh, what is happening now?” she yelled, turning on her heel and running out of the server room to escape the noise.
I crawled out from under the desk, gasping for air. I slipped the flash drive into my pocket. The alarm was my doing; I had set a remote trigger on the building's maintenance app using my father's master access. It saved my life.
I hurried out of the building through the emergency exit and drove straight to a safe house—a small apartment my father had bought under a shell company that Julian’s family knew nothing about.
I plugged the flash drive into a clean laptop. As the files loaded, my eyes widened.
My father’s financial records showed massive, systematic embezzlement by Vivian and Julian’s family over the last three years. But the most shocking file was a scanned audio recording labeled 'Meeting_Vivian_Julian_0412.'
I clicked play.
“He’s getting suspicious, Vivian,” Julian’s voice said on the recording. “He’s auditing the offshore accounts. He’s going to find out we stole thirty million.”
“Then we ensure he doesn't live to finish the audit,” Vivian’s cold voice replied. “I’ve acquired a tasteless, odorless substance. Mix it with his daily heart medication. Once he’s gone, we force Elena into the marriage contract. She’s naive. She’ll never suspect a thing.”
Tears of hot anger spilled down my cheeks. They had poisoned my father. They had stolen his life, and then they had forced me to watch them flaunt their betrayal on my wedding night just to break my spirit so I wouldn't fight back.
Suddenly, my laptop screen flickered. A video feed popped up. It was a live notification from the security cameras I had secretly installed in Julian’s mansion.
Julian and Vivian were in the study, and they had a guest.
It was Detective Miller, the lead investigator who had closed my father’s death case as "natural causes."
“We have a problem,” Detective Miller said, tossing a manila envelope onto Julian’s desk. “Elena’s private investigator has been asking questions. He’s looking for the original blood panels. I can’t hide them much longer without getting internal affairs on my back.”
“How much do you want, Miller?” Julian asked, pouring a glass of whiskey.
“One million. Tonight. Or I hand over the real autopsy report to the federal prosecutor,” Miller demanded.
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Julian smiled, a chilling, confident smirk. “Don't worry. I have the perfect scapegoat. Elena is going to sign a confession tonight, admitting she poisoned her own father out of greed. After all, she was the one administering his medication every day. And with her 'unstable mental state' records, the jury will believe it instantly.”
They weren't just trying to steal my money. They were planning to frame me for my father's murder.
