Chapter 3 - Opening The Encrypted Files Inside The Private Study
Arthur walked away from the foyer, keeping his large arm wrapped firmly around Lily’s shoulders to guide her into his private library.
He locked the heavy brass-reinforced oak doors behind them, leaving Ethan and Victoria banging furiously on the exterior wood.
"Grandpa, are they going to send me away like they did with Uncle David?" Lily asked, wiping a fresh tear from her bruised cheek.
Arthur pulled a handkerchief from his suit pocket and gently wiped her face before sitting at his massive cherrywood executive desk.
"Nobody is sending you anywhere, sweetheart," Arthur assured her, plugging the metallic flash drive into his encrypted computer terminal.
The screen flickered to life, requesting a multi-factor authentication sequence tied to a private wealth management server in Switzerland.
Arthur bypassed the initial security protocol using his master administrative credentials from the family’s umbrella holding corporation.
A folder opened, displaying hundreds of scanned bank ledgers, land transfer deeds, and offshore trust agreements labeled under the name Project Beacon.
The files revealed that Ethan and Victoria had been systematically siphoning funds from the family’s historic shipping enterprise into private shell accounts based in Delaware.
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More shockingly, the documents included legal papers preparing to declare Arthur mentally incompetent to seize control of his entire real estate portfolio.
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