Chapter 11 - The Final Deception
I sat down across from him, crossing my legs, my hands resting calmly on the table. "You have five minutes, Daniel."
"It's a setup!" Daniel rasped, his voice trembling with sheer, unadulterated panic. "Rachel... that baby isn't mine!"
I arched an eyebrow. "Is that supposed to make me feel better? You abandoned your newborn twins in intensive care for a woman who was carrying another man's child?"
"No, you don't understand!" Daniel leaned in closer, his eyes darting frantically toward the one-way mirror on the wall. "Rachel didn't just stumble into my life! She was introduced to me by Marcus Sterling—the lead lobbyist for Thorne Global Logistics!"
A chill that had nothing to do with the room's air conditioning washed down my spine.
Thorne Global Logistics was the primary defense contractor competing against my grandfather’s oversight committee for a twelve-billion-dollar military contract.
"Marcus told me Rachel was an heiress," Daniel babbled, sweat dripping from his chin onto the cold metal table. "He said if I partnered with them and leaked the logistics specs for the military supply lines, they’d guarantee me fifty million dollars through an offshore trust. They used Rachel to compromise me! She recorded our conversations! She made sure I pulled all the money out of your accounts so you wouldn't have the resources to fight back!"
Daniel reached out, his dirty fingernails scratching against the table toward my hands. "Audrey, they weren't targeting me. They were targeting *you*. They wanted to humiliate General Vance. They wanted to force him to resign in disgrace by creating a massive family scandal involving his granddaughter's husband!"
Before I could speak, the heavy steel door of the conference room swung open with a resounding bang.
General Vance stepped inside, but his face was not furious. It was deadly, cold, and pale.
Behind him stood an agent in a black FBI windbreaker holding an encrypted tablet.
"Grandfather?" I stood up, sensing the sudden shift in the air.
General Vance looked past Daniel, his voice completely devoid of emotion.
"Pack your things, Audrey. We have a breach."
Daniel scrambled to his feet. "What? What breach?"
The FBI agent turned the tablet toward us. The screen displayed a live satellite feed of the base perimeter.
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A convoy of three black, unmarked SUVs had just breached the outer civilian checkpoint, and two heavily armed men in tactical gear were dismounting near the private wing of the pediatric medical center.
"Marcus Sterling didn't want to humiliate me," General Vance said, his hand already resting on his service weapon. "He wanted leverage. And his men are inside the hospital."
