Chapter 7 - Ninety Seconds
Daniel didn't flinch. He walked over to the desk, his gaze locked onto Maria’s panicked eyes.
"Marcus is thorough," Daniel agreed, his voice smooth as glass. "He planned for every contingency. He calculated my paranoia, my isolation, my inability to trust anyone in that corporate tower."
"Then you know you've already lost," Maria said, her hand finally dipping into her pocket, fingers closing around a small backup flash drive.
"Except for one variable," Daniel said softly.
"What variable?"
"You forgot that children don't read corporate balance sheets, Maria." Daniel pointed toward the hallway where Lily was sleeping soundly. "When you take a job like this, you teach your children to be invisible. You teach them to stay out of the way, to keep quiet, to never get involved in adult business."
Maria’s breath hitched.
"But every now and then," Daniel continued, stepping closer, "a child decides that someone else is cold. And they drag a heavy cashmere blanket across marble just to cover them up. And in doing that, they disrupt every algorithm your bosses built."
"What are you talking about?" Maria demanded, stepping back against the desk.
Daniel pulled his corporate tablet from his jacket pocket and tapped the screen twice.
A sharp beep echoed from Maria’s laptop.
The green text lines on her screen instantly froze, replaced by a flashing red warning banner: SYSTEM LOCK: ROUTING REDIRECTED TO SECURE FEDERAL STORAGE.
Maria stared at the screen in horror. "What did you do?"
"I didn't hack your transmission," Daniel said calmly. "While you were sitting here watching your terminal, my security team—activated the moment Lily touched my hand and broke my isolation—rerouted your uplink directly to the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission."
Maria lunged for the laptop, slamming her hands onto the keyboard, but the screen went entirely black, replaced by a single blinking administrative seal.
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"It's over, Maria," Daniel said, his voice dropping an octave. "Marcus Vance and Julian Thorne are currently being detained by federal marshals at their respective homes. Your chat logs with Vanguard Global were captured in real-time the moment you initiated the final upload sequence."
Maria slumped against the desk, all the fight evaporating from her frame. The silence in the room returned, heavier now, filled only by the soft, even breathing of the sleeping toddler in the corner.
