Chapter 17
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The glow of Elena’s heavily encrypted laptop illuminated the darkened kitchen, casting sharp shadows against the wooden cabinets. The wind howled outside the cabin, a stark contrast to the suffocating silence indoors. Elena plugged the black USB drive into the port, her fingers flying across the keyboard to bypass the initial security warnings.
"He always used a specific sequence for his personal files," Elena muttered, her eyes locked on the scrolling code. "A dual-layer military cipher. If I input his old deployment dates..."
The screen flashed green, the encryption breaking seamlessly. A single video file sat in the center of the screen, simply titled with a string of numbers that matched the day Arthur had died.
"Play it, Mom," Chloe said, standing right beside her, her voice trembling but resolute.
Elena clicked the file. The screen flickered, revealing Arthur Vance sitting in a dimly lit bunker, wearing his combat fatigues. He looked exhausted, shadows bruising the skin beneath his eyes, but his gaze was as piercing and unyielding as ever.
"Elena, Chloe," Arthur’s digitized voice filled the room, sending a painful jolt through Elena’s chest. "If you are watching this, it means I didn’t make it out of the extraction zone. It also means Eleanor has likely made her move against the estate."
Arthur leaned closer to the camera, his expression hardening.
"Eleanor was a monster, but she was only a financial front. While investigating the foundation’s missing assets, I uncovered a shadow syndicate buried deep within the military-industrial complex. They call themselves Project Obsidian. They are moving illicit weaponry through federal supply lines, and Eleanor was just washing their money. I found their master ledger, but they know I have it."
Chloe gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.
"They engineered my deployment to be a death trap," Arthur continued grimly. "I have buried the ledger's coordinates in the metadata of this video. Elena, you are the best operative I’ve ever known. Do not trust the top brass. Protect our daughter, and burn Project Obsidian to the ground. I love you both. End of transmission."
The screen faded to black. Elena sat perfectly still, the embers of her grief instantly igniting into a roaring, uncontrollable inferno.
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"He didn't die in an ambush," Chloe whispered, tears streaming down her face. "They murdered him."
"Yes, they did," Elena said, her voice dropping to a lethal, icy calm as she closed the laptop. "And we are going to make every single one of them pay."
