Chapter 12
The heavy metal garage door shuddered to a halt three feet off the ground, framing Arthur Vance’s immaculate charcoal suit against the dreary backdrop of the suburban cul-de-sac. Vance didn't flinch as the rusty door scraped upward; he simply lowered his silver-rimmed reading glasses down the bridge of his nose, staring directly at Mark with the detached amusement of a scientist observing a lab rat in a maze.
"You're making this unnecessarily difficult, Mark," Vance said, his voice carrying clearly into the dim garage without a hint of strain. "The board signed off on the restructuring at noon. Your department was liquidated legally. All we need is the boy’s biometric confirmation to release the remaining escrow funds, and you and Sarah can walk away with clean records."
Sarah pulled Leo tighter against her chest, stepping backward until her shoulders hit the passenger side door of the Honda. "We know about the offshore accounts, Arthur," she shouted back, her voice ringing with a fierce, unwavering strength. "The audit isn't about restructuring. It's about the three million dollars you transferred into dummy accounts using my father's old zoning credentials."
Vance’s expression didn't change, but his eyes flicked momentarily toward Leo, who was staring back at the older man with an unsettling, unblinking intensity. "Children inherit more than just eye color, Sarah. Memory retention across generations is a fascinating field of study. Your father understood that better than anyone when he designed the Sector 4 archives."
Mark dropped the iron crank, his muscles coiled like a spring as he stepped between Vance and the car. "Get away from my family, Arthur. If you take one step into this garage, I swear I'll take this flash drive straight to the federal prosecutor's office downtown."
Vance smiled thinly, raising his clipboard to check a digital readout on the attached tablet. "You assume the federal prosecutor's office hasn't already been restructured, Mark. Look down at your son's hand."
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Mark glanced back. Leo was holding the silver flash drive out toward the open gap beneath the garage door, the red LED light blinking in a frantic, erratic pattern.
"He's transmitting the decryption keys right now," Vance said calmly. "The download completes in thirty seconds. You can either hand him over voluntarily, or watch your entire life's work get wiped from every server on this continent."
