Chapter 8
By eight o'clock the following morning,
the war between Carter & Associates and Apex Logistics had turned dangerous.
Rory stepped out of the parking garage elevator on the basement level of her office building,
her heels clicking sharply against the concrete floor.
She stopped abruptly beside David Chen's dark grey sedan.
The driver's side window had been shattered into thousands of tiny glass fragments,
and the driver's seat was covered in deep,
jagged knife slashes.
Pinned to the steering wheel with a sharp metal spike was a manila envelope.
Rory pulled on a pair of leather gloves,
carefully removing the envelope and sliding out its contents.
Inside were three high-resolution photographs.
The first photo showed Clara leaving her catering kitchen late at night.
The second showed David Chen walking to his apartment building.
The third was a single sentence typed on plain white paper:
"Drop the audit by noon,
or your family pays the interest."
David Chen approached from the elevator,
stopping dead in his tracks as he saw his destroyed vehicle.
"Rory,"
David gasped,
his face going pale as he looked at the shattered glass on the ground.
"They followed me last night,"
he realized,
his voice trembling slightly.
Rory handed him the photographs,
her face showing no fear,
only a terrifying,
absolute calm.
"They think fear is an asset on a balance sheet,"
Rory said softly,
her voice colder than the autumn wind blowing through the garage.
"They think if they break a window,
we will tuck our tails and run back into the shadows,"
she added,
turning toward the elevator.
"What are we going to do?"
David asked,
following her closely as the elevator doors opened.
"We accelerate the timeline,"
Rory instructed,
her eyes fixed on the illuminated floor numbers as they ascended.
"Marcus Vance is panicking because he knows his offshore accounts are exposed,"
she analyzed.
"When a corrupt man panics,"
she continued,
"he makes mistakes."
Upon returning to the fortieth floor,
Rory called Assistant United States Attorney Sarah Jenkins.
"Sarah,"
Rory said into her desk phone,
"I am sending you the complete preliminary audit for Apex Logistics right now."
"Do you have enough to freeze their domestic accounts?"
Jenkins asked over the speakerphone,
the sound of typing audible in the background.
"I have something better,"
Rory replied,
her fingers flying across her keyboard.
"I am sending Marcus Vance a fake notice of emergency asset freeze from your office,"
she explained.
"That notice will reach his personal email in five minutes,"
she added.
"Why would you warn him?"
Jenkins asked,
puzzled.
"Because the moment he sees that notice,"
Rory predicted,
"he will attempt an emergency wire transfer of twelve million dollars from his private Swiss account into his Cayman shadow entity."
"And when he initiates that transfer,"
David Chen chimed in from across the desk,
"he will bypass his corporate legal team and execute it from his personal laptop."
"Which gives us his private encryption keys,"
Rory concluded,
a ruthless smile touching her lips.
"You are setting a trap,"
Jenkins said,
a low chuckle escaping her throat.
"I am opening the vault,"
Rory corrected,
watching the digital monitor in front of her.
"Now watch the screen,
Sarah,"
May you like
Rory added,
"because Marcus Vance is about to hand us the keys to his prison cell."
