Chapter 10 - The Last Card
Derek looked unhinged. His hair was sticking up in tufts, his eyes were bloodshot and wild, and his right hand was shoved deep inside the pocket of his heavy wool overcoat.
He stopped ten feet away from me, panting heavily, a manic, desperate grin spreading across his face.
“Clairie, Clairie, Clairie,” Derek sneered, taking a slow step forward across the polished marble floor. “Working late while the rest of the city sleeps? Or are you just polishing the crown before you steal everything your father built?”
I didn't flinch. I kept my hand resting casually near my handbag where my legal-defense pepper spray and personal panic button were housed.
“How did you get up here, Derek?” I asked, my voice calm, steady, and utterly devoid of fear. “Your security clearance was revoked by federal marshals forty-eight hours ago.”
“Never underestimate a man with nothing left to lose,” Derek spat, pulling his hand out of his coat pocket. He wasn't holding a weapon; he was holding a heavy, sealed flash drive and a folded piece of paper. “You think you’re so smart with your forensic audits and your secret trust funds. You think you’ve won.”
“I don't think I’ve won, Derek,” I replied, stepping slowly around the corner of my desk to give myself a clear line of sight to the door. “I know I’ve won. You’re facing federal wire fraud charges, your accounts are frozen, and your wife is packing her bags to move back in with her mother.”
Derek’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second, but then his eyes gleamed with a dangerous, unstable triumph.
“My wife doesn't matter,” he laughed bitterly. “And federal prison? Let them try to convict me. Because before the marshals hauled me away on Friday, I made a copy of something very interesting stored on your father’s private corporate server.”
He held up the flash drive.
“What is that?” I asked, my eyes narrowing.
“That,” Derek whispered, stepping closer, “is a complete, unredacted record of every single illegal tax evasion scheme, offshore shell company transfer, and under-the-table cash bribe your father executed over the last fifteen years to keep the restaurant group afloat before you ever bought Hawthorne Capital.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“If I hand this flash drive to the federal prosecutor’s office tomorrow morning,” Derek continued, his voice rising in hysterical triumph, “not only does the bankruptcy court liquidate the restaurants, but your precious father gets dragged out of his hospital bed in handcuffs to spend the rest of his life behind bars for corporate fraud.”
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Derek tossed the folded paper onto my desk. It slid across the mahogany and stopped right in front of my hands.
I looked down at it. It was a handwritten list of demands: full financial immunity, a one-way ticket to the Cayman Islands, and two million dollars wired into an offshore account by sunrise—or the flash drive goes public.
