Chapter 20 - The Unopened Directory
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One year later.
My architectural firm’s debut project—a sustainable public library built on the site of the former Montgomery country club—was officially inaugurated in New York.
I returned to Manhattan for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, standing alongside my father, Ethan, and Bernardet as the mayor cut the blue ribbon. The crowd applauded warmly, celebrating the transformation of a site once built on corruption into a space dedicated to public learning.
That night, back at my hotel suite, I decided to finally archive all the old case files from my laptop onto an external hard drive to close that chapter of my life forever.
As I transferred the files from Bernardet’s original USB drive, my forensic software flagged a deep, hidden system directory that had been overlooked during the initial trial.
It was an encrypted sub-folder nested deep within the firmware of the drive, labeled in hexadecimal code.
Curious, I ran the new decryption key Ethan had developed during the federal trial.
The folder unlocked with a soft chime.
Inside lay a single, audio recording dated forty-eight hours BEFORE my wedding day.
I clicked play.
The grainy audio picked up Cordelia’s voice, speaking to an unknown caller with a foreign accent.
“The marriage is proceeding as planned,” Cordelia’s recorded voice whispered coldly. “Sarah has no idea about her father’s secondary offshore trust in Switzerland. Once the wedding is finalized, we will execute the second phase of the agreement.”
A dark, unknown male voice replied over the speaker: “And her father? Does he suspect that her mother’s death wasn't an accident caused by your husband's truck, but a hit ordered by us?”
“He knows nothing,” Cordelia replied calmly. “He thinks it was just corporate negligence. He has no idea who really controls Aegis Capital.”
The recording abruptly cut off.
My blood ran completely cold.
Aegis Capital was the massive international investment firm that had just funded my new architectural project in Florence.
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I sat alone in the dark hotel room, staring at the blinking cursor on the screen, as my phone suddenly began to vibrate on the desk.
The screen lit up with an unlisted international caller ID from Zurich, Switzerland.
