Chapter 5 - The Digital Net Closes
"Marcus, lock down the entire perimeter," I ordered, my voice dropping into a cold, tactical register. "Activate biometric access control on all doors and windows. No one enters or leaves without my explicit authorization. And run a deep background check on every single employee who had access to my medical storage archives over the past twelve months."
"Already on it, boss," Marcus replied. "I've got a tactical team moving into position around the Greenwich property. But there's something else. Our internal audit flagged an unauthorized data export from your corporate health benefits server last week. Someone downloaded your confidential fertility preservation records from twelve years ago."
"Who?" I demanded.
"That's the problem," Marcus paused grimly. "The access credentials used belonged to your chief financial officer, Richard Sterling. But his terminal was locked at the time. Someone spoofed his ID."
Richard Sterling. He had been my right-hand man for nearly a decade, a man I trusted with my financial life. If someone had stolen his credentials, it meant the betrayal came from someone high up within the corporate hierarchy—someone with physical access to the executive suites.
I hung up the phone and turned back to Agent Jenkins, who had overheard snippets of the conversation.
"Mr. Carter, if corporate threats are closing in on this property, staying here might compromise the safety of the infant and the minor," Agent Jenkins stated, her professional detachment replaced by genuine concern. "We need to relocate them to a secure state facility."
"No," I said flatly. "Moving them plays directly into whoever is orchestrating this. If Charles Vance wants this baby, he will intercept any state transport just as easily as he tracked my medical records. Our safest option is right here, behind walls that can withstand a siege."
Just as I finished speaking, a gentle knock sounded at the study door. Mrs. Harris walked in, carrying the sleeping newborn in her arms, with Lily trailing closely behind her.
"Nathan," Mrs. Harris said quietly, her eyes filled with resolute calm. "The baby is fed and sleeping peacefully. And Lily has agreed to let me help her wash up and change into some proper clothes. But there's something else you need to see. When I was settling Lily in the guest wing, she gave me this."
Mrs. Harris handed me a small, crumpled piece of paper that Lily had apparently found tucked inside the cardboard box right beside the baby's blanket.
May you like
I unfolded it. It wasn't written by Victoria. It was a hastily scrawled note in a completely different handwriting, containing a series of numbers and a single address in downtown Manhattan:
Pier 44, Warehouse B. If you want to know who really set this in motion, come alone at midnight.
