Chapter 6
A young woman in her early twenties stood in the entryway, wearing a dark travel jacket and carrying a heavy duffel bag. Her facial features bore an undeniable resemblance to Elena’s, but her eyes were cold, sharp, and possessed a familiarity that made Elena step back in shock.
"Chloe?" Elena whispered, the name tearing out of her throat as if she were seeing a ghost. "You’re supposed to be at the university in London. You aren't due back until the semester ends."
Chloe dropped her duffel bag onto the hardwood floor with a heavy thud. She looked at the assembled group—at Martha, at Arthur, and finally at her mother—with an expression of profound disappointment.
"The university semester ended three months ago, Mom," Chloe said, her voice startlingly flat. "Or did your assistant forget to update your calendar for that as well?"
Elena stepped into the foyer, ignoring the men behind her. "That’s impossible. I spoke to your dean last week. I wired your tuition payment directly to the bursar's office."
"You wired money to a dormant corporate shell account that hasn't funded a single credit hour since sophomore year," Chloe said, stepping aside to reveal the interior of the house. The living room walls, usually decorated with modern art, were bare. The furniture had been replaced with rows of filing cabinets and computer servers humming quietly in the corner. "You didn't buy a family home, Mom. You bought a data extraction center."
Arthur walked into the foyer behind Elena, his expression grim. He looked around the room, taking in the servers with a nod of cold recognition.
"The architecture was always too complex for a simple residence," Arthur muttered. He turned to Martha. "She didn't know, did she?"
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"She knew what she wanted to see," Martha replied, walking past Chloe without a word and heading straight for the server racks. She knelt down, disconnected a thick blue fiber-optic cable from the main hub, and held it up.
A loud, automated voice echoed from the hidden speakers throughout the house: System integrity compromised. Initiating total data wipe in sixty seconds.
