Chapter 9 - The Ghost in the System
I kept the weapon trained on the pinned operator with my right hand while my left hand fished my encrypted phone out of my tactical pocket.
The screen flashed with a high-priority alert from Ethan Wright’s automated surveillance network.
Warning: External perimeter breach detected at Lake Tahoe secure property.
My stomach plummeted.
“You didn't send a hit squad for the apartment,” I realized, my voice dropping into a dark, frozen register as I looked back down at the bleeding man. “You sent them as a diversion while a secondary extraction team hit the villa.”
The operator let out a dry, rattling laugh. “Mr. Bennett made a very lucrative deal before you locked him out of the title. Apex needed that house clean, and they needed the original federal deed logs stored in the basement vault. Your family is already packing.”
I didn't waste another second on him. I brought the butt of my pistol down sharply against his tactical helmet, putting him out cold, and turned to Chloe, who was trembling behind the kitchen island.
“Get up,” I said, extending a hand to pull her to her feet. “We’re moving.”
“Where?” she asked, clutching the flash drive to her chest.
“To Lake Tahoe.”
Ten minutes later, my black utility truck was tearing out of the San Diego apartment complex parking lot, burning rubber as it merged onto the northbound interstate. The digital dash clock glowed 2:14 AM.
As I pushed the engine past ninety miles per hour, my fingers danced across the encrypted terminal on the dashboard, routing a direct communication channel to Ethan Wright.
“Ethan,” I snapped into the comms mic as the highway blurred into a ribbon of asphalt under the moonlight.
“I see the alert, Claire,” Ethan’s voice came back through the static, sounding uncharacteristically tense. “A heavy utility transport with corporate plates just bypassed the county road blockades around your Tahoe property twenty minutes ago. They’re using executive override codes to force the main gates open.”
“Are my father and Olivia still inside?”
“Negative,” Ethan replied, the sound of rapid keyboard typing clicking in the background. “Local police logs show your family was pulled over and detained by Washoe County deputies three miles down the road on federal warrant charges related to the Apex wire transfers. But the house isn't empty, Claire. Thermal imaging shows at least four heavily armed operators inside the subterranean vault level.”
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I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turned white.
They weren't just trying to reclaim real estate anymore. They were digging up the physical foundation of the villa to destroy the original military deeds and financial ledgers that proved my father’s treason—and Marcus’s disappearance.
