Chapter 4
The digital clock on the desk glowed 2:14 AM. Clara hadn't slept a wink. She had spent the last several hours backing up every file on the blue USB drive to a secure, off-site cloud vault hosted on encrypted servers in Zurich. She had also sent a heavily redacted package to Marcus Vance—no relation, but a trusted corporate attorney specializing in white-collar fraud—instructing him to open it only if she failed to check in by noon the following day.
A soft tap at the office door startled her out of her concentration.
"Aunt Clara?" Lily’s small, hesitant voice whispered through the wood.
Clara immediately unlocked the door and pulled it open. Lily stood there clutching a stuffed rabbit, her eyes heavy with exhaustion.
"I heard shouting earlier," Lily whispered, looking down at her bare feet on the cold floor. "Is Grandpa going to come back? Is Daddy going to make us leave?"
Clara knelt down, taking Lily’s small shoulders in her hands, meeting the little girl's eyes with absolute conviction. "No one is making us leave, Lily. I promise you. Your father and grandmother made some very bad choices, but they don't get to dictate how we live. Let's get you back to bed, and tomorrow, we're going to go on a little trip out of the city."
"Where are we going?" Lily asked, her expression slightly more relaxed.
"To see some very nice people who help families stay safe when other people try to take advantage of them," Clara said gently, guiding her back down the hallway to her bedroom.
When Clara returned to the office, her phone buzzed with an incoming email from Marcus Vance. The subject line was short: Received. Files are devastating. We need to move quickly before they file an injunction.
May you like
Clara replied instantly: Meet me at the downtown office at 9:00 AM sharp. Bring the local police precinct contact we discussed.
She closed her laptop, unplugged the blue USB drive, and slipped it into the secret lining of her travel tote bag. The house was quiet again, but it was no longer the peaceful quiet of a home; it was the tense stillness before a storm. She walked to the large bay window in the living room, looking out over the manicured lawn bathed in moonlight. A black sedan was parked across the street, its headlights dark, idling by the curb. They weren't giving up. Neither was she.
