Chapter 3 - The Midnight Order-3
"You can't give it back to him," I gasped, trying to swing my legs over the edge of the hospital bed, but a sudden wave of dizziness from the concussion forced me back onto the pillows. "Detective, that briefcase contains active evidence of an international corporate embezzlement scheme and a political bribery ring. If that bag leaves this building, the data will be wiped remotely within ten minutes."
Detective Miller sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Mrs. Callahan, I believe you. But right now, on paper, this is a domestic dispute case with no prior corporate filings. The judicial order was signed by Judge Harrison—a man whose recent re-election campaign was heavily funded by your husband’s development firm. Technically, the briefcase was on his person when he was detained, and since it hasn't been booked into formal evidence under a specific financial warrant, I don't have the legal authority to hold it against a direct court mandate."
"Harrison is dirty," Liam snapped, his voice vibrating with rage. "He’s part of the same political machine that’s protecting Apex. Clara, how much time do we have before the briefcase lock initiates its automated security scrub?"
"The smart-lock partition resets itself every twenty-four hours unless a rolling cryptographic token is entered via the Apex administrative app," I said, my mind racing through the logic loops of the security software I had helped write. "The last token was authorized at 6:00 p.m. last night. That means we have exactly until 6:00 p.m. today to pull the physical data chip out of the lock assembly before it performs a military-grade zero-fill wipe."
I looked at the digital clock on the trauma room wall. 2:14 a.m. We had less than sixteen hours, and the briefcase was currently being carried out of the building by Ethan’s legal team.
"Where is Ethan going now?" Liam asked Miller, his eyes cold and sharp.
"His lawyers are escorting him to his private penthouse at the Grand Horizon complex downtown," Miller replied. "He’s under a temporary twenty-four-hour restraining order to stay away from you and this hospital, Mrs. Callahan. But that’s just a piece of paper. A man with his resources can disappear or alter his destination before dawn if he feels cornered enough."
"He won't disappear," I said, a cold certainty settling into my chest. "He thinks he’s won. He thinks I’m trapped in this bed, broken and terrified. He thinks my brother is just a local doctor who can be buried under legal threats. He’s going to that penthouse to meet Julianna. They need to validate the escrow transfers for the downtown riverfront project before the markets open on Monday morning. If they don't, the syndicate in Cyprus will realize the pipeline has been compromised."
I looked at Liam, a dangerous plan forming in my mind. "Liam, the trust my father left me... it doesn't just give me majority voting control of Apex Development. It also lists me as the sole legal owner of the Grand Horizon penthouse property. Ethan lives there under a corporate lease that I can terminate with a single digital signature."
"What are you thinking, Clara?" Liam asked, a look of cautious comprehension dawning on his face.
"We’re going to execute an immediate corporate eviction and a comprehensive digital asset freeze on all Apex-managed networks," I said, my voice hardening into the tone I used when I used to hunt corporate criminals for the federal government. "If we cut off his access to the penthouse servers, he won't be able to validate the Cypriot wires. He’ll be trapped inside that building, unable to move the money, and unable to destroy the briefcase data without the master console access."
May you like
"It’s a massive risk," Detective Miller warned, looking toward the door. "If you do this outside of a police warrant, anything we recover inside that penthouse could be ruled inadmissible in a criminal court."
"I don't care about the criminal court anymore, Detective," I said, looking him dead in the eye. "I care about survival. If I don't dismantle his empire by sunrise, Ethan Callahan will kill me, and he will make it look like a tragic accident that no one can ever prove."
