Chapter 18 - The Final Counter-StrikeWe didn't call the police from my father's house. We didn't scream, and we didn't cry. We drove straight back to the Manhattan high-rise, operating with the cold, calculated efficiency of an elite strike team.
"If my father’s firm is legally tied to the laundering ring," I said, pacing back and forth across the polished concrete floor of the boardroom, "then the federal prosecutor’s office will seize our family's remaining assets within forty-eight hours unless we beat them to the punch."
"We don't just beat them, Clara," Julian said, his fingers flying across the master console as he routed the encrypted files directly to the federal cyber-crime division. "We use your father’s testimony as state's evidence to pierce the corporate veil entirely. Because your ex-fiancé used your family as an unwitting—or rather, coerced—proxy, any seizure order against your father's firm is legally null and void under federal duress statutes."
Elena looked up from her tablet, a fierce, triumphant smile breaking across her face.
"And since we hold the primary patents and the uncorrupted software source code," Elena added, "we can petition the court to transfer all remaining frozen assets of the syndicate directly into the Vance & Vance Restitution Group as compensation for structural damages."
I stopped pacing. I looked at Julian, then at Elena, and finally out the glass window at the glittering expanse of the New York skyline.
The trap my ex-fiancé had laid years ago—the elaborate web of fraud, coercion, and corporate deceit meant to trap me forever—was about to snap shut. But it wasn't going to catch me.
May you like
It was going to swallow him whole.
"Do it," I said quietly. "File the motion."
