Chapter 10 - Audrey's Recovery and Resolve
Back at the high-security penthouse suite overlooking the glittering Chicago skyline,
Audrey Miller slowly opened her eyes as the morning sun struggled to pierce through the thick,
leaden clouds hanging low over Lake Michigan.
Her whole body ached with a deep,
throbbing soreness,
and the white medical bandage taped neatly across her left temple pulsed rhythmically with every beat of her heart.
She tried to sit up,
swinging her legs over the edge of the plush leather sofa,
and noticed a fresh set of clean clothes neatly folded on the glass coffee table alongside a steaming cup of black coffee and a secured corporate laptop.
She dressed quickly,
wincing as her bruised ribs protested every movement,
before walking over to the floor-to-ceiling glass wall to look out at the grey,
rain-slicked city below.
She knew Adrian wasn't in the penthouse,
because the heavy analog telephone on his mahogany desk remained silent,
and the subterranean garage elevator was locked down tight.
She walked over to the desk,
her fingers brushing lightly across the polished wood before she opened the encrypted corporate ledger that lay open in the center of the workspace.
What she saw on the screen made her breath catch in her throat,
instantly overriding the physical pain throbbing through her bruised limbs.
A unauthorized fifty-thousand-dollar wire transfer had been executed late last night from a dormant subsidiary account directly to an offshore shell company tied to Viktor Petrov's Bratva network.
The transfer code had been authorized using the digital credentials of Julian Vance,
the senior junior accountant whom Audrey had personally trained and mentored over the last three years.
Julian,
she whispered to herself,
her eyes narrowing with a sharp mixture of betrayal and cold,
calculating fury.
You stupid,
arrogant little fool,
you sold out our books to the Russians,
and you didn't even realize you just signed your own death warrant.
Audrey did not hesitate for another second,
sitting down in Adrian's leather executive chair,
May you like
her fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard as she locked down every single corporate account in the Cross Syndicate,
effectively freezing Viktor Petrov's access to the laundering network before he could drain another red cent.
