Chapter 5
The ambient sounds of the luxury hotel—the distant murmur of the lobby, the low hum of the ice machine down the hall—rushed back into the room as Marianne stood up from her kneeling position beside Clara. The two police officers who had pinned Julian to the floor stepped forward, their expressions stone-cold as they hauled the handcuffed man back to his feet. Julian’s white shirt was now stained with dust from the floor, and his dark hair was wild around his temples. He refused to look at Marianne, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor in a sullen, seething silence. One of the officers gripped Julian’s elbow firmly, guiding him toward the door while pulling a small laminated card from his breast pocket. In a clear, monotonous voice that contrasted sharply with the emotional devastation in the room, the officer began to recite the Miranda rights. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law..." Julian stared ahead, his jaw clenched so tightly muscles ached along his jawline. He understood every word, but his mind was racing, trying to calculate which shell companies might still be active, which foreign contacts might still pick up his encrypted calls. Yet, deep down, he knew the freezing of his primary accounts meant the authorities had seized his entire digital infrastructure. Every server, every hard drive, every proxy account had been mapped by federal cyber-crime units working in tandem with Marianne’s private intelligence firm. As they led him past the spot where Clara lay, Julian glanced down at his wife with a look of pure, unadulterated hatred. She had helped them. She had given Marianne the master encryption keys in exchange for a false promise of safety. Clara averted her gaze, squeezing her eyes shut as the heavy oak door of the suite closed behind the officers, cutting off the sound of Julian’s muffled curses as they marched him down the hallway toward the service elevators. Marianne remained inside the suite for a moment longer, looking down at the discarded smartphone lying near the Persian rug. The screen had finally gone black to conserve battery, mirroring the total blackout of the Vance financial empire. She tapped the device with the toe of her designer shoe, a faint, humorless smile touching the corner of her lips. The first phase was complete, but the legal war in the federal courts was only just beginning, and Marianne intended to oversee every single deposition personally.
