🔥 CHAPTER 4 — THE TRAP WAS SET... AND THE HUNTERS BECAME THE PREY
Daniel couldn't sleep anymore.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Emily disappearing beneath the waves.
But it wasn't guilt that haunted him.
It was fear.
Someone had emptied nearly twelve million dollars from one of his offshore accounts—not by stealing the money, but by freezing every transaction with legal court notices from multiple countries.
Only someone who knew his secret financial network could have done that.
Michael slammed a folder onto the conference table.
"Our accounts in Cyprus, Panama, and Singapore are locked."
Daniel's face darkened.
"Who knows about those accounts?"
"No one..."
Michael suddenly stopped speaking.
The brothers stared at each other.
At exactly the same moment.
"Emily."
Daniel laughed nervously.
"That's impossible."
"We watched her drown."
Michael leaned closer.
"Did we?"
Silence filled the room.
Neither brother dared answer.
That afternoon, Daniel ordered private investigators to search every hospital, morgue, and coastal town within three hundred miles of where Emily had disappeared.
Nothing.
No body.
No survivor.
Nothing.
Yet strange things kept happening.
Anonymous emails arrived.
One simply read:
HOW DID THE OCEAN TASTE?
Another contained only a photograph.
Daniel's own yacht.
Taken yesterday.
Someone had been close enough to photograph it without being seen.
Then came the most terrifying message.
A ten-second audio recording.
The sound of crashing waves.
A woman laughing softly.
Daniel instantly recognized the voice.
Emily.
He threw his phone across the room.
"No..."
"This can't be happening."
Across town, hidden inside an abandoned lighthouse overlooking the harbor, Emily calmly watched Daniel's mansion through a powerful camera lens.
Beside her sat Eleanor and two federal agents.
Agent Rebecca Collins smiled.
"He's unraveling."
Emily lowered the binoculars.
"Not yet."
"He still thinks this is revenge."
"What is it really?"
Emily looked toward the ocean.
"It's justice."
She opened another encrypted file.
The shipment scheduled for Friday night carried thirty-two trafficking victims hidden inside refrigerated cargo containers.
If that shipment left American waters...
many would never be seen again.
Emily looked at the agents.
May you like
"You have seventy-two hours."
"I'll make sure Daniel delivers every piece of evidence himself."
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