Chapter 7 - The $900 Million Trap
Vincent contacted them the next morning.
His demand was simple.
The master key for Noah Rivers.
Autumn stopped breathing.
Noah had vanished from Lakeshore Medical.
This time, it was real.
Dominic ordered every resource he possessed into the search.
Autumn refused to wait.
“He wants the key. We'll give it to him.”
“No.”
“That's my brother.”
“And giving Vincent Blackbird could compromise millions of people.”
“Then we don't give him Blackbird.”
Dominic saw the change in her expression.
“What are you thinking?”
Autumn smiled.
For the first time, Dominic understood why MIT had once considered her extraordinary.
“We give him exactly what he wants.”
She built a counterfeit master key.
But buried inside it was something else.
A logic bomb.
The same technique used against Dominic.
Except this one would not destroy files.
It would expose them.
When Vincent activated the key, every Kestrel archive would simultaneously duplicate into secured evidence servers Autumn had created.
Financial crimes.
Bribery.
Blackmail.
Murders.
Everything.
Dominic watched her work.
“You're terrifying.”
“You threatened to dump me in Lake Michigan twenty-four hours after meeting me.”
“That was before I liked you.”
“You had a strange courtship strategy.”
He almost smiled.
The exchange took place at the Meridian Building.
The same building where everything began.
Vincent brought Noah.
Alive.
Voss stood beside him.
Autumn finally faced the professor who had destroyed her life.
“You were brilliant,” Voss told her.
“I was twenty.”
“You could have changed the world.”
“You stole seven years from me.”
“I preserved your work.”
“You preserved yourself.”
Vincent interrupted.
“Enough.”
Dominic held the drive.
“My brother for hers.”
Vincent smiled.
“Your father would be disappointed.”
“My father died knowing exactly what you were.”
The smile disappeared.
Vincent released Noah.
Roman pulled him to safety.
Dominic tossed the drive.
Voss inserted it into the system.
Autumn waited.
Three seconds.
Five.
Then—
ACTIVATION COMPLETE.
Vincent smiled.
“Finally.”
Autumn whispered:
“Got you.”
Every screen in the room changed.
Files began uploading.
Vincent's smile vanished.
“What did you do?”
“Finished what my father started.”
Voss attacked the keyboard.
Too late.
Kestrel's hidden servers opened.
Autumn's logic bomb propagated through every connected node.
Vincent pulled a gun.
Dominic stepped between him and Autumn.
But the shot never came.
Voss struck Vincent from behind.
Everyone froze.
Voss held his own weapon against Vincent.
“I've worked for you thirty years,” he said.
Vincent stared.
“You belong to me.”
“No.”
Voss looked toward Autumn.
“I belonged to fear.”
His expression held something Autumn had never expected.
Shame.
Voss surrendered.
Vincent did not.
He fired.
Roman returned fire.
Vincent fell.
The war that had begun before Autumn was old enough to understand computers ended on the same floor where she had walked in carrying lunch.
But another problem remained.
The Hong Kong deal.
The nine hundred million dollars had never been a simple real-estate transaction.
Kestrel money was hidden inside it.
Dominic discovered that Vincent had engineered the entire deal to launder Blackbird profits through Dominic's legitimate holdings.
If Dominic completed it, he would inherit Vincent's criminal liability.
He tore up the agreement.
Roman stared.
“You just walked away from nine hundred million dollars.”
Dominic looked at Autumn.
“No.”
He dropped the papers.
“I walked away from Vincent's empire.”
For the first time in his adult life, Dominic Kaine chose something other than power.
But freedom had a price.
Federal investigators were already coming.
May you like
And Autumn's logic bomb had just sent them enough evidence to bring half of Chicago down with Vincent.
Including Dominic.
