Chapter 7
We arrived at my office building in fifteen minutes.
James was driving, and he drove like we were being chased.
Maybe we were.
Marcus was on the phone the entire time, talking to his team, to the police, to the IT department.
“Shut down all external access,” he was saying. “Lock Ethan out of every system. And get someone down to the server room. Now.”
We burst into the lobby.
The security guards looked shocked to see me.
“Mr. Reynolds,” one of them stammered. “We didn’t know you were—”
“Where is he?” I said.
“Top floor,” he said. “In your office. He said he had important files to retrieve.”
I was already in the elevator.
The doors opened on the top floor.
I could hear shouting from my office.
I ran down the hallway.
Burst through the door.
Ethan was standing behind my desk, my laptop open in front of him, frantically typing.
He looked up when we entered.
His face was pale.
Sweaty.
Desperate.
“Get out,” he said. “This is my company too. I built it with you.”
I walked toward him slowly.
“You built nothing,” I said. “You stole from me. You betrayed me. You helped Vanessa try to lock my mother away.”
He reached into his pocket.
Pulled out a USB drive.
Held it up.
“Everything is on here,” he said. “The bank records. The emails. The plans for the offshore accounts. If I delete this, you have nothing. No proof. No case.”
He was bluffing.
Marcus’s team already had copies of everything.
But I didn’t tell him that.
“Give me the drive, Ethan,” I said.
“Or what?” he said. He was backing away now, toward the window. “You’ll have me arrested? Go ahead! I’ll tell them everything! I’ll tell them how you knew! How you let it happen because you were too busy with your stupid companies to care about your own mother!”
I stopped.
He was losing it.
Completely.
“Ethan,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “Give me the drive. It’s over. There’s no way out.”
He laughed.
A wild, crazy sound.
“No way out?” he said. “I have a plane waiting at the airport. I have money in accounts you’ll never find. I’m getting out of here. And Vanessa is coming with me.”
Vanessa.
Of course.
They were still planning to run together.
“Ethan,” I said. “She’s not coming. She’s too busy trying to save her own reputation. She doesn’t care about you. She never did.”
“Liar!” he screamed. “She loves me! We’re going to be together! We’re going to—”
The door burst open again.
Two police officers ran in.
“Ethan Clarke,” one of them said. “You’re under arrest for embezzlement, conspiracy, and unauthorized access to computer systems.”
Ethan stared at them.
Then he looked at me.
Then he looked at the USB drive in his hand.
And he did the one thing I didn’t expect.
He threw it out the window.
We all watched it fall.
Forty stories down.
Onto the busy street below.
“No!” Marcus shouted, running to the window.
Ethan smiled.
A triumphant, desperate smile.
“Now you have nothing,” he said.
The officers cuffed him.
Led him out.
He was still smiling as the door closed behind him.
Marcus turned to me, his face ashen.
“The backup copies,” I said. “Your team has them, right?”
Marcus nodded slowly.
“We do,” he said. “Most of it, anyway. But there were files on that drive we didn’t have access to. Communications with Vanessa’s brother. Possibly others.”
I walked to the window.
Looked down at the street below.
Cars.
People.
Somewhere down there, a small USB drive was lying in the gutter.
Or crushed under a tire.
Or picked up by a stranger who would never know what was on it.
“We need to find it,” I said.
James was already on the phone.
“I have men on the way,” he said. “They’ll search every inch of that street.”
I nodded.
But I knew the odds were against us.
We went back to the house.
My mother was waiting for us.
She could tell something was wrong immediately.
“What happened?” she said.
“Ethan destroyed some evidence,” I said. “But we still have enough. We’ll be okay.”
She took my hand.
“I believe you,” she said.
That night, the news exploded.
The recording of Vanessa threatening my mother was everywhere.
Every news channel.
Every social media platform.
Every tabloid.
The public turned on her instantly.
The charity galas that had once honored her dropped her immediately.
The brands she had endorsed canceled their contracts.
Her friends disappeared.
Her “powerful” connections stopped returning her calls.
But she didn’t go quietly.
She gave an interview to a tabloid, claiming the recording was edited.
Claiming I had manipulated my mother.
Claiming I was a dangerous, controlling man who had abused her for months.
No one believed her.
The comments on the article were brutal.
“Did she even listen to her own voice?”
“That woman is pure evil.”
“Lock her up and throw away the key.”
I watched it all from my study.
My mother was asleep upstairs.
Marcus was in the living room, working on his laptop.
James was at the gate, watching for Vanessa’s next move.
I picked up my phone.
Called the one person I hadn’t spoken to in months.
“Aunt Margaret?” I said when she answered.
“Daniel?” she said, her voice full of concern. “I just saw the news. Is your mother okay?”
“She will be,” I said. “But she needs you. She needs her family.”
“I’m on the first flight in the morning,” she said.
I hung up.
For the first time since this nightmare began, I felt like we might actually win.
Then my phone buzzed.
A text from James.
“Mr. Reynolds. You need to see this. Vanessa’s brother Richard was just spotted entering the house. The back gate. He got past security.”
I stood up.
Grabbed the letter opener from my desk.
May you like
Ran toward the stairs.
My mother was alone.
