Chapter 10 - The Master of the Game—The New CEO
“Dad?” I whispered, the hard drive trembling in my hand.
William Carter rolled his wheelchair out of the shadows. He looked healthier than he had in years. The frail, dying man I had spoon-fed was completely gone, replaced by a ruthless, calculating kingpin.
“You did beautifully, Emily,” my father said, glancing dismissively at Arthur’s dead body. “I needed Arthur to think he was winning. I needed him to bring the armored transport here so I could reclaim my assets. And I needed you to rewrite the code so Arthur’s technicians couldn't stop us.”
Julian slowly stood up from the floor, clutching his bleeding side. “You played us all, William. You let Arthur destroy his own empire trying to catch ghosts.”
“And you’re going to help me clean up the mess, Julian,” my father said, waving his revolver. “Or you can die right next to Arthur.”
Chloe walked over to our father, placing a hand affectionately on his shoulder. They looked like a perfect, happy, psychopathic family.
“Give me the drive, Emily,” my father said, holding out his hand. “You did your job. The family business is back in our hands. You never have to work a corporate desk again.”
I looked at the man who had lied to me my entire life. I looked at the sister who had faked her death to run a human trafficking ring.
“You’re right, Dad,” I said quietly. “I never have to work a corporate desk again.”
I lifted my thumb off the biometric scanner.
The small LED light on the drive blinked from green to flashing red.
My father’s smile vanished instantly. “Emily! What did you do?!”
“I didn't set a dead-man's switch to leak the files to the press, Dad,” I said, stepping backward toward the open warehouse door. “I set it to wipe the Montreal servers completely. And to initiate a self-destruct protocol on every ghost truck’s engine block across the country. They’re all stalling out on the highways right now. The police will find them in five minutes.”
“Stop the wipe!” Chloe screamed, lunging toward me.
“It’s a hard-coded burn, Chloe. It can’t be stopped.”
I dropped the drive onto the concrete and crushed it beneath my boot.
My father raised his revolver, screaming in absolute rage, aiming directly at my face.
But before he could pull the trigger, the wail of a dozen police sirens echoed through the district. Red and blue lights flooded the warehouse windows. The FBI had traced the massive data breach straight to this location.
Julian didn't wait to be arrested. He tackled Chloe into the shadows, disappearing into the labyrinth of the warehouse.
My father sat in his wheelchair, paralyzed by the sudden collapse of his twenty-year empire.
I walked backward into the rain, letting the cold water wash the blood from my hands.
“Goodbye, Dad,” I whispered.
I turned and walked away into the night as the SWAT teams breached the building.
Two weeks later.
I sat in a corner booth of a quiet diner in Montreal. The rain tapped against the window.
I opened my laptop and logged into a secure, untraceable banking portal.
I hadn't wiped the escrow accounts. I had rerouted them.
The screen loaded, displaying a balance of eighty-five million dollars in clean, untraceable funds.
I closed the laptop, took a sip of my black coffee, and smiled. The operations assistant was dead. The Chief Operating Officer was retired.
I was finally my own boss.
The next chapters are on the left side of your screen.
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