Chapter 6 - Family Ties and Bleeding Ledgers
The blue light from the dual monitors cast long, distorted shadows across the server room walls. Claire stood motionless, her eyes glued to the scrolling lines of financial data that proved her younger brother Thomas was deeply entangled in the very crime she had just exposed. The bitter taste of betrayal coated the back of her throat, sharper and more painful than anything Julian had ever done.
"Are you certain of this, David?" Claire’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper. "Could Thomas's name be a forgery? Could Julian have set him up to take the fall if things went sideways?"
"I thought of that," David replied, tapping a few keys to pull up a high-resolution signature log and a series of encrypted transaction receipts. "So I cross-referenced the IP addresses and the cryptographic keys used to authorize the wire transfers. They originated directly from Thomas’s apartment in downtown Chicago, and his personal biometrics were used to sign off on the largest tranches."
Claire gripped the edge of the metal desk so hard her knuckles turned white. Thomas. The brother she had put through college, the one she had bailed out of gambling trouble just four years ago, had been draining her personal trust fund while pretending to be her shoulder to cry on during her marital breakdown with Julian.
"He knew," Claire muttered, her voice trembling with restrained fury. "He sat in my apartment last week and told me I was doing the right thing by going after Julian. All while he was actively stealing the remainder of our mother’s estate."
"What are you going to do?" David asked carefully, watching her reaction with deep concern. "If we hand this data over to the federal investigators tomorrow morning, Thomas goes down right along with Julian. There’s no way to separate their digital footprints without compromising the entire case."
"If he's a thief, he faces the same consequences as anyone else," Claire said, her jaw tightening as she forced her emotions back under strict control. "Family doesn't give anyone a free pass to commit financial treason."
Her phone suddenly lit up on the desk, vibrating insistently against the metal surface. The caller ID displayed Thomas’s name, accompanied by a small, mocking photograph of him smiling.
"Speak of the devil," David murmured.
Claire let the phone ring for several long seconds, listening to the vibration echo in the quiet room. Then, she picked it up, swiped the answer icon, and held it to her ear without saying a word.
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"Claire? Thank god you picked up," Thomas’s voice rushed through the speaker, frantic and breathless. "You need to listen to me right now. Julian is threatening to release documents that could ruin our entire family."
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