Chapter 9 - The Scent of Lavender-9
"They know your name now, Colonel Rowan Whitlock," Preston whispered into the phone, his voice dropping into a harsh, freezing whisper that blurred the glass partition between us. "They know where you live, where you work, and every single digital footprint you leave behind. You might have locked me in this cage, darling, but you've locked yourself and your twins in a prison of fear for the rest of your days. Every time a car slows down outside your house... you’ll know they're coming to collect the debt."
I stared at him through the glass for a long, agonizing moment. Then, slowly, deliberately, I allowed a small, calm smile to stretch across my face—the first real smile I had worn since the day I checked the ledger files.
"They aren't coming for me, Preston," I said softly into the phone.
"What are you talking about?" he muttered, his brow furrowing in deep confusion.
"Before I executed the master override at the server vault," I explained, my voice dropping into a harsh, freezing whisper that blurred the glass between us, "I routed the frozen eighty-five million dollars through a secondary, permanent escrow diversion protocol. I didn't hand the money to the federal treasury, Preston. I returned it directly to the syndicate's master accounts in Cyprus, along with a complete digital dossier of your personal bank records, your private messages to Marcus Croft plotting to cut them out of the riverfront development profits, and the proof that you were the one who brought the FBI down on their network to save your own skin."
Preston’s face went entirely white, the skin around his scarred jaw trembling with a sudden, primal terror as the true nature of his situation unmasked itself.
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"The syndicate doesn't blame me for the leak, Preston," I whispered, his—sorry, my eyes burning into his shattered soul. "The syndicate blames you. They know you got greedy. They know you tried to steal their pipeline. And they know exactly which federal facility you're being transferred to next week. Enjoy your thirty-five years, Preston. You’re going to be spending them with very attentive roommates."
I placed the phone back on its cradle, stood up from the stool, and turned my back on them without a single backward glance, leaving Preston Whitlock screaming frantically into the silent glass as the marshals dragged his chained body away into the dark.
