CHAPTER 10: THE MAN INSIDE THE BOARD
Owen Pierce did not run.
He raised his hands before Detective Cole could draw his weapon.
“I didn’t fire the shot.”
The vault manager had been struck in the shoulder. He was conscious, and paramedics reached him quickly.
The person who took Thomas’s records had escaped through a service elevator.
Security footage showed a masked figure carrying a courier bag.
Owen appeared on the cameras two minutes later.
“What are you doing here?” Maya demanded.
“Trying to stop Charles.”
“You helped abduct Gregory.”
Owen looked toward Cole.
“I can explain the video.”
“Start now,” Cole said.
Owen had discovered Gregory hiding in a parking garage after the first cyberattack. Gregory believed Charles was tracking him.
The two men seen forcing Gregory into the van were actually Owen and a private security officer helping him avoid Halcyon surveillance.
“Why not contact police?” Elena asked.
“Because Charles has access to law enforcement databases. Every official report reached him within minutes.”
“Where is Gregory?”
“I moved him to a secure medical facility.”
“Then why did you disappear?”
“Because Gregory told me someone inside Aster’s board was working directly for Charles.”
Maya stared at him.
“You.”
“No.”
Owen reached into his jacket slowly and removed a flash drive.
“I voted against you because Charles expected me to. I warned him about the envelope because I needed him to believe I was still loyal.”
“You allowed the hospital attack to happen.”
“I tried to convince North Atlantic to disconnect. Charles overruled me.”
“You were the chairman of that hospital.”
“On paper. Charles controlled every executive beneath me.”
Maya’s anger remained.
“People could have died.”
“I know.”
Owen’s voice broke for the first time.
“My daughter was a patient at North Atlantic twelve years ago. Charles arranged a transplant when no other hospital would accept her.”
“And you owed him.”
“I thought I did. Then he spent the next decade collecting payment.”
The flash drive contained internal Halcyon messages, hospital acquisition plans, and communications between Charles and Michael Arden.
One message discussed Gregory.
Keep Shaw alive until the receivership vote. After that, he becomes unnecessary.
“Take us to him,” Cole ordered.
Owen led them to a rehabilitation center outside the city.
Gregory was alive but weak.
He had been drugged during the original abduction attempt and suffered a head injury while escaping. Owen had hidden him under a false patient name.
Lydia sat beside her son’s bed.
Gregory opened his eyes.
“You found the ledger?”
“Someone stole it,” Maya replied.
“Then they know about the mirror server.”
“What mirror server?”
Gregory had created Project Lantern while working inside David and Rebecca’s network.
Originally, it was not a weapon.
It was a hidden archive designed to copy evidence whenever Rebecca or Charles moved money through Meridian Strategies.
Gregory later discovered that Halcyon had corrupted the system and transformed it into the blackout protocol.
“Why was your signature on the code?” Maya asked.
“They used my original encryption architecture. I should have destroyed it when I had the chance.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
Maya was tired of hearing those words after damage had already been done.
“Where is the mirror server?”
“In an old Aster backup facility.”
Priya checked the address.
The facility had been decommissioned two years earlier.
David had insisted the company sell it because maintenance costs were too high.
The buyer had been a Meridian subsidiary.
Charles now owned the building.
Gregory struggled to sit up.
“The server holds everything Thomas collected, along with Rebecca’s private communications. But it requires three access keys.”
“Who has them?” Cole asked.
“I have one. David has one.”
“And the third?”
Gregory looked at Maya.
“You do.”
Maya shook her head.
“I’ve never seen it.”
“David hid it inside your executive authentication system. That’s why your credentials were used during the attack.”
Her identity was not simply being used to frame her.
It was the final key to Charles’s entire archive.
Marcus’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, and turned toward Maya.
“The state committee moved the receivership hearing.”
“To when?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
Owen looked at the clock.
“That gives Charles less than twenty-four hours to destroy the mirror server.”
At that moment, Priya received an automated security alert.
Movement had been detected inside the abandoned Aster facility.
The live camera showed men carrying fuel containers through the server room.
One of them removed his mask.
It was Michael Arden.
Rebecca’s attorney.
May you like
He looked directly into the camera and smiled.
Then he struck a match.
