Chapter 3 - The Monday Morning CollapseThe sun rose over Chicago with a pale, unforgiving gray light.
At 8:00 AM, Daniel woke up in the guest suite of the downtown hotel, nursing a heavy bourbon hangover and wrapped in crisp white hotel sheets. Beside him, Rachel was still fast asleep, her arm draped over his chest.
Daniel smiled, feeling a rush of triumphant adrenaline. The party had gone off without a hitch. Emily had scurried away like a whipped dog, exactly as he had planned. Today was Monday. He would head into the office, finalize the asset transfer papers, and serve Emily with divorce papers by the afternoon.
He rolled over, grabbed his phone from the nightstand, and tapped the screen to check his corporate banking dashboard.
The app flashed a bright, solid red banner:
ACCOUNT FROZEN. SECURITY PROTOCOL 404 ACTIVATED.
Daniel frowned, sitting upright. He tapped his personal account. Frozen. He tapped the company payroll account. Zero balance.
Before he could even dial his CFO, his phone rang. It wasn't the CFO. It was Arthur Vance, the senior board member and primary investor of Carter Global.
“Sterling, what the hell is going on?” Arthur’s voice boomed through the speaker, vibrating with unbridled fury. “Every single server at headquarters just went dark! Client databases are locked, our logistics algorithms are returning critical errors, and the federal compliance auditors are downstairs freezing our corporate accounts!”
“What?” Daniel scrambled out of bed, nearly tangling himself in the sheets. “That’s impossible! The servers are managed by—"
“By Aegis Core,” Arthur shouted. “And according to the emergency override filed twenty minutes ago at 8:00 AM, the sole patent holder just revoked our operating license for corporate fraud and asset embezzlement!”
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Daniel stared at the phone in absolute horror. “Who... who filed the override?”
“Natalie Hayes,” Arthur snarled, using Emily’s maiden name. “Your wife. Now fix this, Sterling, or I swear to God I will personally see you thrown in federal prison before noon.”
