Chapter 4: The Midnight Confidant
Locked inside the massive mahogany-paneled walk-in closet of the master suite while Beatrice showered, Julian frantically dialed Marcus Vance, his estranged older brother and a federal forensic accountant who had spent a decade warning him about Beatrice's ruthlessness. The phone rang three times before a groggy, gravelly voice answered on the other end.
"Julian? Do you have any idea what time it is? If this isn't about a cardiac arrest, hang up," Marcus muttered, the sound of rustling bedsheets coming through the speaker.
"Marcus, I need your help. The Engent acquisition is a complete setup," Julian whispered fiercely, pressing his back against the cedar-lined wall of the closet to block any stray sound from the bathroom. "Beatrice just confessed. It’s a systemic financial wipeout. They’re going to frame me for embezzlement by dawn."
On the other end of the line, the sleep vanished instantly from Marcus's voice, replaced by razor-sharp professional focus. "I told you six months ago that woman was laundering money through shell corporations in the Cayman Islands. You didn't listen. Tell me you haven't signed the final master contract yet."
"Not yet. The formal signing is scheduled for seven o'clock tomorrow morning in the executive boardroom," Julian said, wiping a bead of cold sweat from his forehead. "Chloe, the waitress from the restaurant downstairs, slipped me a warning. Her brother helped code the backdoor before they put him in the hospital."
"Listen to me very carefully, little brother," Marcus instructed rapidly, his voice urgent. "Do not confront her again. Do not let her suspect you’re fighting back. If you try to access the corporate servers from the penthouse, their proprietary monitoring software will lock you out and trigger the frame job immediately. You need physical evidence. You need the cold-storage drive holding the master decryption keys for Engent."
"Where is it?"
"It’s not in the office. Beatrice is too paranoid for cloud storage. It’s physically locked inside the corporate vault on the subterranean level of the Vance Global headquarters," Marcus explained. "You need to slip out of the hotel, bypass building security, and download the ledger logs onto an encrypted drive before sunrise. Otherwise, when you sign those papers at seven, your biometric signature executes the transfer code automatically."
The bathroom water suddenly stopped running. The rhythmic splashing ceased, followed by the heavy sliding of the glass shower door.
"Marcus, I have to go. She’s getting out," Julian whispered, his heart hammering violently.
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"Julian, if you get caught down there, they won't just frame you. They'll bury you. Be careful." The line went dead with a soft click.
Julian pocketed his phone just as the closet door handle began to turn, forcing his face into a mask of placid exhaustion as Beatrice stepped into the warm light of the dressing room, wrapped in a silk robe, smelling of jasmine and impending doom.
