Chapter 6 - The Thugs at the Gate
The security feed showed Julian leaning heavily against the brass turnstile, his face pale and haggard, his dark hair matted with rain. The expensive blue suit he had worn the night before was now wrinkled and stained at the cuffs, bearing the unmistakable wear of someone who had spent twelve hours pacing the pavement in absolute desperation. The two men beside him—former warehouse enforcers Julian had once kept on a secret corporate payroll—looked ready to kick through the glass doors at a single word.
"He’s lost his mind," Martha whispered, leaning over Clara’s shoulder to stare at the monitor with wide eyes. "Bringing muscle to the Sterling Tower? Does he think he can intimidate the board by smashing a lobby window?"
"He’s not trying to intimidate the board," Clara said quietly, her eyes narrowing as she watched Julian reach into his pocket and pull out a thick roll of cash, shoving it aggressively toward the chest of the larger enforcer. "He’s trying to break into the physical server room on the third floor. That’s where the hard copies of the offshore ledger are stored."
Arthur’s voice chimed in through the desk intercom, sharp and commanding. "I’ve already alerted building security and dispatched the private tactical unit. They’re five minutes away. But if those men breach the lower-level data vault before the guards arrive, they could compromise the local backup drives."
Clara didn't hesitate. She turned away from the monitor, her eyes scanning the room until they landed on a heavy steel lockbox resting on the credenza behind the desk. She walked over, punched a six-digit code into the digital keypad, and popped the lid open. Inside rested a polished black satellite phone with a secure, encrypted line directly to the city’s municipal dispatch and the lead investigator at the district attorney’s office.
"Don't send building security," Clara said into the intercom, her voice dropping into an icy, authoritative register. "Let them break the glass."
Martha gasped, taking a half-step back. "Clara, if they reach the server room—"
"They won't reach the server room," Clara interrupted, a thin, dangerous smile touching her lips. "That particular vault hasn't housed actual data in forty-eight hours. We moved the physical servers to the secure downtown facility yesterday afternoon. What’s left down there is a decoy drive designed to trigger an automatic federal trespass and destruction-of-evidence alarm the second the door is forced."
On the monitor, the larger enforcer raised his baseball bat, drawing it back over his shoulder with a vicious grin. Julian stood behind him, frantically waving his hand toward the glass doors, urging the man to strike. With a deafening crash that echoed faintly even through the audio feed, the heavy glass door shattered into a thousand glittering shards across the marble floor.
Julian and his two hired thugs swarmed through the opening, disappearing from the camera’s immediate angle as they plunged deeper into the building’s lower corridors.
"They're inside," Martha breathed, clutching her tablet to her chest. "Now what?"
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"Now," Clara said, lifting the black satellite phone to her ear, "we let the law finish what my grandfather started."
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