Chapter 11 - The Terminal’s Verdict
The heavy iron poker whistled through the damp air, missing Daniel’s temple by mere inches as he threw his weight backward, tackling Victoria hard against the rotting wooden wine racks. Bottles crashed to the stone floor in a cascading explosion of shattered glass and vinegar-scented liquid, sending a cloud of aged dust billowing into the narrow archive room. Victoria screamed in blind fury, thrashing beneath him with surprising strength, her diamond necklace catching the pale green light of the computer monitor as she clawed at his face.
"Dad!" Lily’s terrified cry cut through the chaos from behind the oak desk.
"Stay down, Lily! Don't look!" Daniel shouted, wrenching the heavy iron poker out of Victoria’s grip and hurling it across the room into the darkness.
He pinned her wrists against the floor with his knees, breathing heavily, his suit jacket torn at the shoulder. Victoria glared up at him, her face twisted in pure venom, her makeup smeared across her cheeks like war paint.
"You can't erase me, Daniel," she spat, blood trickling from a small cut on her lip. "The board owns you. The banks own you. Without my signature on the restructuring trust tomorrow morning, your entire empire collapses into bankruptcy by noon."
"Let the empire burn," Daniel said coldly, standing up and dusting off his knees. He didn't look back at her as he walked over to the terminal.
The screen was still blinking with the red folder: PROJECT CINDERELLA - 10.14.2014. Without hesitation, Daniel jammed the micro-SD card back into the reader and hit the enter key. A progress bar instantly filled the screen, accompanied by a sharp, electronic chime that signaled a successful upload to an external, decentralized cloud node outside the state’s jurisdiction.
A file window popped open, displaying a digitized video recording dated ten years ago to the exact night of the hospital fire.
Daniel clicked play. The grainy black-and-white footage flickered to life, showing the interior of the private maternity ward. A nurse in scrubs—wearing a nametag bearing Victoria’s maiden name—was seen handing a small, blanket-wrapped bundle to a man standing by the service exit. That man was Marcus Vance. Behind them, through the reinforced glass window of the recovery room, Sarah could be seen struggling against a medical restraint strap, her mouth open in a silent, agonizing scream.
Victoria froze on the floor, her eyes locked on the monitor. The color drained entirely from her face, leaving her looking like a corpse dragged out of the river.
"That... that file was destroyed," Victoria whispered, her voice cracking into a pathetic whine. "Marcus swore he wiped the central server in Zurich."
"Marcus is an amateur," Daniel said without turning around. "He forgot that my grandfather wired this room into an independent satellite uplink that doesn't rely on the corporate grid."
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Before Victoria could scramble toward the door, the heavy iron frame of the archive entrance shuddered violently as a series of loud, rhythmic thuds echoed from the outer cellar—followed by the unmistakable sound of sirens wailing in the distance, cutting through the rainy night air far above the earth.
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