Chapter 2 - The Tailored TrapBy 4:00 PM, the Grand Meridian ballroom was a hive of controlled chaos.
Fifty-foot crystal chandeliers cast a brilliant, warm glow over the sprawling tables draped in champagne-colored silk. Frost-white floral arrangements—imported hydrangeas and cascading orchids—sat atop mirrored centerpieces, reflecting the ambient light. It looked like a fairytale.
To anyone walking in, it was a masterpiece of luxury event planning.
To me, it was a stage set for an execution.
I walked the perimeter in a sleek, obsidian-black tailored pantsuit, my heels clicking sharply against the polished marble floor. My dark hair was pulled back into a severe, elegant chignon, and my makeup was minimalist yet striking, anchored by a bold, uncompromising crimson lip.
Chloe rushed up to me with a clipboard pressed against her chest, looking flustered. "Madison! Thank God you're here. The AV team is having issues with the primary slide deck for the keynote presentation. The file Ethan's office sent over seems to be corrupted, or... well, it's missing the final slides."
I stopped walking and turned to her, my expression calm. "Missing? What do you mean?"
"The first half is standard medical tech data," Chloe whispered, leaning in nervously. "But the last three slides... the file names are encrypted, and the projection software won't open them without a secure administrator override code."
A dark, electric thrill hummed through my veins.
"Show me," I said quietly.
We walked over to the main tech booth at the back of the ballroom. The lead AV technician, a stressed-out young man named Leo, was furiously typing commands into a dual-monitor console.
"Look at this, Mrs. Carter," Leo said, spinning his screen toward me. "Dr. Carter's assistant uploaded this via our secure portal an hour ago. The presentation looks normal up until slide forty-two. Then it hits a password-protected zip file containing three hidden slides. I can't bypass it without crashing the entire presentation loop."
I leaned closer, reading the file metadata.
Project_Apex_2026_Final.
I knew what was in those hidden slides. Ethan was a cautious man, but he was also arrogant. He loved flaunting his triumphs. For months, he had been boasting behind closed doors about a confidential corporate merger and a massive off-shore venture funded through the medical tech partnership—a venture that skirted dangerously close to federal conflict-of-interest violations and corporate embezzlement.
He had intended to use tonight’s gala—in front of federal regulators, hospital executives, and journalists—to quietly announce the partnership rollout, securing his position as the undisputed king of Texas cardiology.
"Can you extract the hidden directory without opening it live on the main screens?" I asked Leo softly.
Leo blinked, surprised. "Well... technically, I could mirror the source folder to an isolated terminal in the green room, or route it to a secondary monitor. But why would you want to do that? If it crashes during his speech—"
"It won't crash," I interrupted, my voice dropping an octave, laced with absolute authority. "In fact, Leo, I want you to set up a secondary manual trigger switch at the podium. If Dr. Carter signals for the final slides, I want you to route the display not just to the main projectors, but to the VIP monitor feeds as well."
Leo stared at me, sensing the heavy, shifting undercurrents in the room, but he nodded slowly. "You got it, Mrs. Carter. Whatever you say."
I turned away from the tech booth, pulling my compact mirror from my purse to check my lipstick.
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The trap was fully wired. Every camera angle locked. Every slide positioned. Every powerful person in Dallas gathered under one roof.
Now, all I had to do was wait for my husband to walk into the lions' den.
