Chapter 16 - The Counter-Attack
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We abandoned Lena's car in a suburban strip mall and paid cash for a seedy motel room under a fake name. The moment the door clicked shut, I went to work.
I was in agonizing pain, my body shivering with a low-grade fever, but the fire in my mind was blindingly bright. I used a burner phone Lena had bought from a gas station to call the one person I knew despised Daniel as much as I did: Marcus Vance, an investigative journalist for the city's largest independent paper.
"Caroline?" Marcus asked, his voice thick with sleep. "It's 4 AM. I heard you were in the hospital."
"I'm out, Marcus. And I have the story of the decade," I rasped. "I'm sending you a secure encrypted file right now. It contains routing numbers linking Judge Malcolm Reed to Apex Holdings, and direct evidence of cartel money laundering managed by Daniel Sterling."
I heard him sit up instantly. "Caroline, if I publish this, Daniel's assets will be frozen by the Treasury Department by noon. He'll be a dead man walking."
"That's exactly what I'm counting on. Publish it."
I hit send, forwarding a fraction of the evidence from my father's journal.
By 8:00 AM, the story broke online. By 9:00 AM, every major news network was running it. The financial world exploded. The Treasury Department immediately froze Apex Holdings' accounts, locking up billions of dollars in syndicate money.
Daniel wasn't just a suspect anymore. I had just made him the most hunted man in the country.
"He's trapped," Lena said, watching the news on the tiny motel television.
Then, my burner phone rang. The caller ID was blocked.
May you like
I answered it.
"You think you're clever, Caroline?" Daniel's voice whispered through the speaker. He didn't sound smooth anymore. He sounded like a rabid animal.
