Chapter 6 - Midnight in the Archives
Before we moved against the board, I needed the original ledger.
The thumb drive Claire gave me contained copies, but in corporate fraud cases involving established family trusts, Illinois law required the wet-ink originals of the founding shareholder agreement to trigger an emergency hostile replacement of the CEO.
And those originals were locked in the subterranean safe behind my father’s portrait on the fortieth floor.
"It's too dangerous," Claire warned, looking at the security feed of Northgate Tower. "Travis hasn't left the building. He’s sleeping in the executive lounge with two private guards posted outside."
"He thinks I’m running scared through the city," I said, sliding on a fresh black uniform, pulling my dark hair back into a tight, severe bun. "He thinks I'm huddled in a homeless shelter or waiting at a bus terminal. The last place he expects to see me is right under his nose."
"Your incision, Eliza," Marcus cautioned. "If you tear the internal sutures, you'll bleed out before an ambulance can reach you."
"My father built that company for Maya," I replied, fastening my keycard badge around my neck. "I will bleed on the floor of that tower before I let Travis Fenwick give my daughter's inheritance to his mother."
Twenty minutes later, Marcus's car dropped me in the service alley.
The rain had softened into a ghostly mist. The building was dark, a colossal monolith of glass and steel piercing the low clouds. I used the bypass code Claire provided to unlock the sub-basement freight entrance, slipping into the shadows like a wraith.
The elevator climbed silently. Every floor marker that blinked past felt like the cocking of a gun.
*Floor 38... Floor 39... Floor 40.*
The doors slid open with a whisper.
The executive lobby was bathed in the pale amber glow of emergency exit lights. The air smelled of expensive cigars and Travis's signature sandalwood cologne. I moved across the deep carpet without a sound, staying low against the frosted glass partitions.
Through the blinds of the main boardroom, I saw them.
Travis was slumped on a leather sofa, his dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar, an empty bottle of scotch sitting on the glass table. Victor was pacing the floor, chewing his fingernails down to the quick.
"...the wire clears in five hours, Travis!" Victor hissed through the glass. "If Vance is alive, we are facing federal prison! Wire fraud, grand larceny, conspiracy!"
"Shut up!" Travis snarled, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. "Vance can't touch us without the original shareholder ledger. And that ledger is locked in the safe behind Arthur's portrait. The combination is forty digits long, split between two biometric keys. Nobody opens that safe without me."
I didn't listen to another word.
I slipped down the private corridor toward my father’s old corner office. The door was unlocked.
Inside, the moonlight spilled through the massive glass windows, illuminating the portrait of Arthur Vance Fenwick—my father. His stern, kind eyes seemed to follow me as I crossed the room.
I reached behind the canvas frame. My fingers touched cold, brushed steel.
Travis thought the safe required his biometric key. He was wrong. My father had installed that vault fifteen years ago, long before Travis Fenwick ever set his lying eyes on our family. The primary fail-safe was never digital. It was mechanical.
I pressed the small, hidden lever concealed behind the mahogany frame molding.
*Click.*
A hidden panel slid back, revealing a manual mechanical dial. I spun the numbers without hesitation: Maya’s birthdate combined with the day my father founded the firm.
*Clunk.*
The heavy steel door swung open.
Inside sat the blue leather binder containing the original, unalterable master shareholder agreement, embossed with the golden seal of the Fenwick Trust. Beside it lay an envelope addressed to me in my father’s distinct, bold handwriting.
*For Eliza—When the mask falls.*
My hands tightened around the binder. I pulled it out, shut the safe silently, and tucked the leather volume under my arm.
Suddenly, the heavy oak office door swung open.
The overhead lights flared on, blinding me.
May you like
"Well, well," Travis’s voice echoed across the room, dripping with venom and drunken triumph. He stood in the doorway, holding a heavy glass tumbler in one hand and his phone in the other. "Look what crawled out of the gutter."
***
