Chapter 17 - The Decryption
A tiny green light flashed on the edge of the compact mirror.
"Allow me," Sterling said, handing the items back to Claire. As he looked up and recognized her face, his polite smile instantly vanished, replaced by a mask of pure fury.
"What are you doing here, Ms. Hale?" he hissed quietly.
"Just enjoying the party, Mr. Sterling. The wine here is exquisite."
Claire took her purse, stood up, and walked away before he could signal his guards. She found Adrian near the exit, and they swiftly left the hotel, vanishing into the night before Sterling's men could mobilize.
Back at the townhouse, Claire connected the compact mirror to her laptop. The biometric scanner had captured a perfect, high-resolution map of Arthur Sterling's right thumbprint.
With trembling hands, she connected David's encrypted flash drive. A prompt appeared on the screen, demanding a biometric bypass.
Claire ran the digitized thumbprint through the decryption software Elise had provided.
Processing...
The progress bar crawled agonizingly slowly.
Match found. Access granted.
The drive opened, revealing thousands of files. Claire clicked on a folder labeled "Oakridge Acquisition." Inside were the original emails detailing the forgery plot, bank transfer receipts for bribing the city clerk, and the true architectural reports proving the new luxury condos were structurally compromised.
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"We have him," Adrian whispered, looking over her shoulder. "We actually have him."
"Not yet," Claire said, her eyes cold. "If we take this to the corrupt local police, it disappears. We need to expose this where he can't control the narrative."
