Chapter 7 - The Boardroom Ambush
Travis stared at me for a long, silent moment. Then, slowly, a smug grin spread across his face. He stepped aside and gestured into the vast, dimly lit office.
"By all means, Eliza. Empty the bins. It’s important to maintain a clean workspace."
I pushed the heavy cart into the center of the room.
On the massive walnut desk, the monitor of Terminal 40B was glowing with a complex matrix of financial data. A digital clock in the corner of the display read: *11:54:22*.
Five minutes.
I rolled the cart toward the desk, deliberately placing the tall gray canvas hamper between Travis and the computer screen. I unclipped a spray bottle of glass cleaner and began wiping down the low coffee table near the leather sofa.
Travis walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out over the glittering grid of Manhattan. He took a slow sip of his bourbon.
"You know, Eliza, when we met, I actually admired you," he said, his back turned to me. "You carried yourself like someone who owned the world. But you were soft. Your father was soft. You thought business was about relationships, about legacy. You never understood that business is war. You take what you can hold, and you destroy whatever threatens your position."
"Is that why you destroyed my family’s name?" I asked, moving quietly toward the back of the desk, pretending to empty the small wastebasket beneath it.
"I didn't destroy your name," he replied without turning around. "I elevated it. Northgate is worth four times what it was under your father. But you wanted to drag me into court. You wanted to split the company down the middle, sell off our core assets, and give the proceeds to your bleeding-heart charities."
*11:57:10*.
I dropped to one knee beneath the walnut desk, exactly where Claire had pulled me twenty-four hours earlier.
The back panel of Terminal 40B was exposed. A row of blue illuminated ports flickered in the shadows. I reached into my smock pocket, pulled out the black magnetic bypass device, and aligned it with the primary data bus.
"You could have had an easy life, Eliza," Travis continued, his voice hypnotic, dripping with self-justification. "A beautiful townhouse in London. An allowance that would keep you comfortable until you died. But you chose to challenge me. And now, you’re going to spend the next five to ten years in an orange jumpsuit, wondering where it all went wrong."
*11:58:00*.
The terminal screen above me shifted. A sharp digital chime echoed through the silent office.
*TRANSACTION INITIATED: WIRE_REF_#8849201-B.*
*AMOUNT: $3,400,000.00 USD.*
*ROUTING TO: FENWICK LEGACY ASSETS LLC (OFFSHORE).*
I shoved the bypass device into the primary port.
A microscopic red LED on the device flared green. The device pulsed once, twice, violently overriding the localized network parameters.
"What was that?" Travis said, turning sharply from the window.
He walked toward the desk, his brow furrowed, his glass lowered.
"Eliza? What are you doing down there?"
*11:59:15*.
"The liner was caught on the shredder teeth," I said smoothly, my voice muffled beneath the walnut modesty panel.
Travis rounded the corner of the desk, towering over me. His right hand—still clutching his master cryptographic keycard—rested heavily on the edge of the mahogany desktop, barely two inches above where the bypass device was transmitting.
A progress bar flashed across the bottom of the screen:
*NEAR-FIELD SENSOR DETECTED: MASTER_KEY_TF-001.*
*INJECTING HARDWARE BIOMETRICS INTO TRANSACTION METADATA...*
*OVERRIDE COMPLETE.*
*12:00:00*.
The terminal emitted a soft, triumphant double-beep.
*TRANSACTION COMPLETED.*
*ORIGINATING SIGNATURE: TRAVIS FENWICK (CHAIRMAN/CEO).*
*AUDIT LOG LOCKED TO HARDWARE TOKEN TF-001.*
*TRANSACTION DISPATCHED TO FEDERAL CLEARINGHOUSE.*
I stood up slowly, clutching an empty plastic trash bag.
Travis looked down at the terminal screen. He didn't see the tiny bypass device hidden behind the thick cable conduit. He only saw the confirmation dialogue: *TRANSACTION COMPLETED*.
He let out a long, satisfied exhale, a victorious smirk settling onto his lips.
"Well," he said softly, looking at me with cold, triumphant eyes. "It seems your time here is officially finished, Eliza."
May you like
"You're right, Travis," I said, untying my cleaning smock and letting it fall to the floor at his feet. "My work here is done."
***
