I had cloned Sterling’s access badge the night before, a trick Rebecca had taught me during the Julian debacle. The server room was freezing, the air conditioning blasting to keep the massive mainframes cool. I plugged my encrypted drive into the master terminal, bypassing the standard user interface. I wasn’t looking for the malware; I was looking for the physical backdoor. Someone had to be physically plugging a device into the internal network to broadcast an external ledger.
I pulled the access logs for the server room over the last forty-eight hours. There were only three entries besides my own. Sterling, the facilities manager, and a junior analyst named Elias Thorne. Elias was a quiet, unassuming kid who had been hired through a specialized recruitment agency. I pulled up his personnel file, my eyes scanning the details. His resume was flawless, his references were impeccable, and his background check was clean. But the recruitment agency that had placed him was a boutique firm in Delaware.
I ran the agency’s corporate registry through my phone.
The registered agent for the agency was a shell company called Vanguard Consulting.
Vanguard Consulting was the exact same firm Marcus Vance, Julian’s shark lawyer, used to hide his personal assets.
The mole wasn’t just a random corporate spy; he was Julian’s direct proxy.
I heard the heavy security door click open behind me.
I didn’t panic; I simply ejected the drive, slipped it into my pocket, and turned around.
Elias Thorne stood in the doorway, holding a cup of coffee, his eyes wide with surprise.
I smiled at him, a cold, predatory smile that made him take a step back.
I asked him what he was doing in the server room at six in the morning.
He stammered, claiming he was running a routine diagnostic for the Tokyo migration.
I told him to go back to his desk, and that I would be reviewing his diagnostic report personally.
The hunt was no longer a mystery; it was an execution.
Chapter 25: The Midnight Meeting
I didn’t fire Elias, and I didn’t alert security.
Firing him would only alert Julian that I knew, forcing him to accelerate his timeline.
Instead, I decided to play his game, using his arrogance as the weapon against him.
I invited Elias to a late-night strategy session at a high-end steakhouse in Meatpacking District.
I told him I needed his fresh perspective on the Tokyo yield models, appealing to his ego.
He arrived looking nervous but thrilled, clearly unaccustomed to one-on-one time with the Chief Strategy Officer.
We ordered expensive wine and rare cuts of meat, the atmosphere deceptively relaxed.
I played the part of the mentoring executive perfectly, asking him insightful questions about his career.
He relaxed, his shoulders dropping, his guard lowering with every glass of wine.
Then, I casually brought up the recruitment agency that had placed him.
I mentioned that I was thinking of using them for my new independent consulting spin-off.
I watched his eyes carefully, looking for the micro-expression of panic.
It was there, just for a fraction of a second, a fleeting shadow of guilt.
I pressed harder, asking if he knew the founder of Vanguard Consulting.
He lied, smoothly claiming he had only dealt with the junior recruiters.
I leaned across the table, lowering my voice, dropping the corporate facade entirely.
I told him that I knew about Marcus Vance, the shell company, and the red ledger.
The color drained from his face so fast I thought he might faint.
He looked around the restaurant, suddenly realizing he was trapped in a cage of my making.
I slid a manila envelope across the table, stopping his hand before he could reach for it.
I told him the envelope contained the federal wire fraud charges I was about to file against him.
Unless, of course, he agreed to become my double agent.
He stared at the envelope, his breathing shallow, his world collapsing in real-time.
I gave him until midnight to decide if he wanted to be a hero or a felon.
Chapter 26: Julian’s Proxy
Elias chose survival, just as I knew he would.
By one in the morning, he was sitting in my office, trembling, ready to do whatever I asked.
I gave him a burner phone and a very specific set of instructions.
He was to contact his handler, the man pulling his strings from the outside, and feed them false information.
The false information was that I had discovered a massive, unreported cash reserve in the Apex offshore accounts.
I told Elias to claim that I was planning to move the funds to a secure vault in Zurich on Friday night.
It was a brilliant, irresistible bait for the syndicate remnants.
They wouldn’t be able to resist trying to intercept the transfer.
But the real genius of the plan was the secondary layer.
I had Rebecca set up a digital trap in the Zurich routing protocol.
The moment the syndicate tried to access the fake reserve, their IP addresses and decryption keys would be logged and sent directly to the FBI cyber division.
We weren’t just going to catch Julian’s proxy; we were going to catch the entire remaining board of the syndicate.
On Thursday, Elias made the call, his voice shaking as he delivered the fabricated intel.
I sat in my office, watching the city lights blur in the rain, feeling the familiar, cold thrill of the trap snapping shut.
My phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.
It was a single image: a photograph of my apartment building, taken from the street below.
The message was clear: we are watching you, and we know you are playing games.
I didn’t feel fear; I felt a surge of pure, unadulterated fury.
They thought they could intimidate me with shadows and photographs.
They had forgotten who I was.
I was the woman who had burned a billionaire’s life to the ground.
I was the woman who had outsmarted a cartel.
I typed back a single reply: Let them come.
