Chapter 9 - The Cold War in the Penthouse
Upstairs on the forty-second floor, Dominic Marlo was slamming his fists against a dead computer screen.
The master study of the penthouse was pitch black except for the harsh blue glow of a single laptop monitor. The bank interface had frozen mid-transfer, a stark red banner flashing across the display: TRANSACTION BLOCKED - SECURITY HOLD LEVEL 9.
"Damn it! Damn it all to hell!" Dominic roared, sweeping a ceramic inkwell off the mahogany desk. It shattered against the baseboard, spraying black ink across the white wool rug.
His phone buzzed relentlessly on the desk—not with calls from Evelyn, but from his chief financial officer, his personal attorneys, and the federal compliance officers who had just received an automated freeze notification from Julian Rhodes' legal division.
Dominic grabbed the phone, bringing it to his ear with a trembling hand.
"Sir! We have an emergency," his CFO’s voice shrieked through the speaker. "The primary liquidity pools have been locked by Rhodes Capital! Every overseas wire has been intercepted, and the board has just called an emergency virtual session for midnight!"
"Who authorized a freeze?" Dominic yelled, pacing frantically across the room, stepping over shattered glass. "Call our corporate counsel! Get an emergency injunction filed in federal court by sunrise!"
"We can't, sir," the CFO whimpered, the sound of sheer panic choking his words. "The injunction wasn't filed by a standard firm. It was backed by federal asset-forfeiture warrants tied to the subsidiary embezzlement audit. They have the hard drives, Dominic. They have the routing slips. Someone inside the personal network uploaded the master archive to the federal database twenty minutes ago."
Dominic stopped dead in his tracks. The phone slipped slightly from his sweat-slicked fingers.
Someone inside the personal network.
He hadn't left the hard drives behind. He had kept them in the private safe behind the oil painting in the hallway. The only person in the world who knew the code—who had watched him punch it in a thousand times while pretending to read a book—was Evelyn.
May you like
Panic curdled into pure, unadulterated fury. Dominic lunged toward the hallway, grabbing his car keys off the console table. If she thought she could destroy him and walk away with Julian Rhodes, she was dead wrong.
---
