THE BILLIONAIRE IN CANVAS: WHY THE ARROGANT CLERK REGRETTED HUMILIATING THE WRONG MAN TODAY

Before Marcus’s fingers could fully wrap around the handle of the desk drawer, Arthur moved with terrifying speed. Despite his advanced age, the old man lunged forward across the Persian rug, hurling the heavy brass paperweight directly at the monitor array. The solid metal object shattered the central screen in an explosion of sparks and flying glass, instantly severing the active data uplink to the Swiss depository account.

Marcus shouted in sudden fury, yanking the drawer open and lunging upward with a heavy, matte-black encrypted hardware token in his hand. “You fool! You just corrupted the master decryption key! Without that token, the transferred assets are locked in limbo forever!”

“That was the entire point,” Arthur said coldly, grabbing Marcus by the lapels of his tailored charcoal suit with surprising, vice-like strength. He shoved his former head of security backward against the towering oak bookshelves, sending a cascade of ancient leather-bound encyclopedias crashing down onto the floor around them.

Evelyn rushed to the desk, her eyes scanning the remaining secondary monitors that were still flickering with auxiliary data streams. “Mr. Vance! Look at the server logs! The asset transfer didn't just go to Switzerland—there’s a secondary routing address pinging an active terminal right here inside the manor!”

Marcus laughed, even as he struggled against Arthur’s iron grip, blood trickling from a small cut on his temple where a falling book had clipped him. “You’re too late, Arthur! Look at the physical wall safe behind the portrait of your late wife!”

Arthur froze, his grip loosening just a fraction. He turned his head slowly to look at the large oil painting of Eleanor Vance hanging directly above the marble fireplace. The heavy gold frame was slightly askew, revealing the biometric keypad of a secure wall safe embedded deep within the reinforced stonework.

“You didn't just steal the corporate funds,” Arthur whispered, the color draining from his face as the true scope of the betrayal hit him. “You went after the personal trust.”

“The corporate patents are just paper,” Marcus snarled, wrenching himself free from Arthur’s grip and stumbling back toward the French doors that led out onto the second-story balcony. “The real value of Vance Enterprises has always been the proprietary R&D blueprints from your early experimental designs—the ones you locked away where even the board couldn't reach them.”

Marcus slammed his hand down onto the emergency lever mounted beside the French doors. The heavy glass panels slid open automatically, flooding the study with the cold, howling mountain wind.

“You’re not getting off this property, Marcus,” Evelyn shouted, stepping between him and the balcony exit. “The state police are already past the main gates!”

Marcus pulled a small, silver remote control from his pocket and pressed a glowing red button. A deafening roar echoed across the courtyard below as the automated security drone pad on the roof suddenly opened up, lifting a heavy military-grade surveillance drone into the stormy night sky.