Chapter 4: Inside the Command Post
Back inside the ballroom, the immediate shock of the trustees' removal had settled into a heavy, suffocating tension. Guests picked at their untouched plates of filet mignon, avoiding eye contact with the security guards who now flanked the exits like obsidian statues. Julian Reed stood calmly beside the dais, his fingers resting casually on the edge of the table next to the locked white gift box. Clara remained seated in her bridal gown, her expression unreadable as she watched Beatrice step down from the podium and walk toward the private alcove near the kitchen entrance.
Beatrice moved with calculated grace, her beige beaded gown whispering against the carpet. She pushed open a narrow, unmarked door that led directly into the club’s security and audiovisual control room. The small room was bathed in the green and blue glow of half a dozen computer monitors displaying live feeds from every corner of the property. A technician in a cheap polyester suit stood up immediately from his chair, stammering an apology.
“Sit down,” Beatrice commanded softly, closing the door behind her to shut out the faint murmur of the wedding reception. She stepped closer to the primary monitor, where a split-screen display showed multiple angles of the subterranean parking garage and the ground-floor corridors. “Show me the feed from the west service hallway.”
The technician frantically tapped his keyboard, bringing up a high-definition view of the concrete corridor where Elena was currently struggling with her encrypted phone. On the screen, Elena could be seen pressing her back against the fire door, her brow furrowed in concentration as the red warning banner pulsed repeatedly on her device.
“She’s attempting an external data push,” Beatrice noted, her voice devoid of emotion. “She thinks she can outsmart Julian’s network architecture.”
“We’ve got the signal jammer running at maximum output on the lower frequency band,” the technician replied, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. “Her files are trapped in the local buffer. She can’t upload anything unless she physically connects to the local mainframe or resets the router in the server room down the hall.”
Beatrice leaned in closer, studying Elena’s reflection in the monitor. She had watched Elena grow up, had seen the girl’s ambition mirror Julian’s own ruthless streak. It was precisely that shared DNA that made Elena so dangerous. Julian wanted to crush her completely; Beatrice preferred to offer a calculated exit that left the family’s reputation intact.
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“Do not let her reach the server room,” Beatrice instructed calmly, straightening her posture. “Deploy the secondary team from the loading dock. Escort her off the property, but ensure her phone remains inside our possession before she leaves the building. Under no circumstances is she to retain that device.”
The technician nodded, reaching for his radio handset to relay the command to the guards stationed near the kitchens. Beatrice turned back toward the door, pausing with her hand on the brass knob. She looked at her reflection in the dark glass of the monitor—older, tired, but still holding the invisible threads that kept the Reed empire from tearing itself apart from the inside.
