Chapter 10
Clara’s fingers slid inside the heavy paper envelope, her fingernails catching the edge of a folded stack of legal documents and a small, digital flash drive. David was still focused entirely on Marcus, keeping the suppressed pistol leveled at his brother's chest while slowly walking toward the center of the dance floor.
"Move away from her, Marcus," David ordered, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy register. "Unless you want your brains splattered across this expensive white lace wedding dress."
Marcus hesitated, looking back at Clara with desperate, apologetic eyes, but he slowly raised his hands and stepped sideways, putting three feet of distance between them.
Clara didn't hesitate. With a sudden, fluid motion, she pulled the flash drive from the envelope, turned around, and dove behind the massive, multi-tiered wedding cake table. The heavy fabric of her dress caught briefly on the decorative floral arrangements, but she wrenched herself free, sliding onto the sticky floor behind the barrier of the table just as David fired a warning shot into the ceiling.
Crack!
The sound of the suppressed gunshot was deafening inside the enclosed ballroom, sending plaster dust raining down from the vaulted ceiling. Several remaining guests near the kitchen doors screamed and dove behind tables.
"Clara! Where did she go?" David snarled, sweeping the barrel of the gun toward the wedding cake table.
Marcus lunged forward, tackling his brother around the waist with a desperate roar. The two men crashed hard onto the polished wood floor, wrestling violently for control of the pistol as it skidded across the floorboards toward the center aisle.
Behind the cake table, Clara’s hands shook uncontrollably as she fumbled with her small evening clutch bag, extracting her smartphone. She didn't care about the wedding, the guests, or the millions of dollars in corporate assets anymore; she only cared about survival. She popped the tiny SIM card tray out of her phone with an earring back, slid the flash drive's micro-adapter into the slot, and powered the device back on.
A red notification light blinked frantically on the screen: Data Transfer in Progress.
"Get off me, you idiot!" David roared, landing a vicious elbow into Marcus’s ribs, sending a sharp grunt of pain through the room. David scrambled to his feet, wiping dust from his tailored suit jacket, his eyes scanning the room for Clara.
"Clara! I know you're back there!" David called out, taking slow, deliberate steps toward the wedding cake table, the heavy footsteps echoing against the floor. "You can't hide from me. The building is locked down, and the local police are twenty minutes away."
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Clara held her breath, watching the progress bar on her phone screen tick upward: 78%... 89%... 95%...
Suddenly, the screen flashed green, and a folder containing thousands of audio files, bank transfers, and video recordings opened automatically. At the very top of the list was a video file labeled simply: The Truth About David Hayes.
