Chapter 7 - The Poison Pill"Where are you, Elise?" I demanded, pushing myself up despite the pain. Daniel immediately leaned over to support me, listening in.
"We're on the roof of the Bellamy Plaza downtown!" Elise cried, sobbing openly. "She has the master encryption keys to the Blackstone mainframes. She’s going to wipe the servers and transfer the entire liquidated treasury to an untraceable crypto-wallet! She promised Julian Vance a cut to help her escape the country! Please, Claire, I didn't know she was going to hurt you or the babies! I just wanted the money for my company!"
"Elise, listen to me," I said authoritatively. "Do not get on that helicopter. Delay her. Delay her for ten minutes."
I hung up and looked at Daniel. "If she executes the poison pill protocol, Blackstone will collapse. Thousands of employees will lose their jobs, and the trust that belongs to our children will be completely obliterated."
"I’m calling the police to intercept the helicopter," Daniel said, his fingers flying across his phone.
"The police won't be able to stop her from pressing a button on her laptop before they arrive," I said, my legal mind racing. "Daniel, the master encryption keys require a dual-authentication override from a primary trustee in case of a hostile takeover. Your father built that failsafe into the system before he died."
"But Vivian has the outdated key she’s been using for forgeries," Daniel realized.
"Yes, but she doesn't know that the moment the board froze her accounts yesterday, my team at Blackstone activated the new security protocol," I said, a wave of fierce satisfaction washing over me. "The new protocol routes all liquidation requests directly through the Senior Trustee Auditor’s terminal. My terminal."
I opened my laptop right there in the hospital bed. Within seconds, an emergency alert flashed across my screen: WARNING: UNFAVORABLE LIQUIDATION REQUEST DETECTED. AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
Vivian was trying to initiate the purge from the rooftop.
I didn't deny the request. Instead, I initiated a reverse-trace lock. Every time she tried to input a command to bypass the system, my laptop fed her false progress bars while simultaneously downloading the exact location and contents of the digital wallet she was using to hide the stolen funds.
"I’m locking her out of the network permanently," I muttered, my fingers flying across the keyboard. "And I'm redirecting the $42 million she stole back into the primary trust account."
On the screen, a live video feed from the Bellamy Plaza security cameras appeared—a feed I had tapped into via the Blackstone security network. I could see Vivian standing on the windy helipad, her hair disheveled, frantically typing on a rugged laptop while Elise cowered near the open door of a sleek black helicopter. Julian Vance stood nearby, looking anxiously at his watch.
Suddenly, Vivian’s laptop screen flashed red. Even from the distant security camera, I could see her throw her hands up in absolute rage. She had finally realized she was trapped in a digital cage of my making.
"She’s realized it's a trap," Daniel said, watching the monitor. "Look, the FBI tactical units are breaching the roof doors!"
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On the screen, armed federal agents burst onto the helipad, weapons drawn. Julian Vance immediately threw his hands in the air, dropping his briefcase. Elise sank to her knees, weeping.
But Vivian didn't surrender. She grabbed her laptop, turned toward the edge of the sixty-story building, and looked directly up at the security camera, as if she knew I was watching.
