Chapter 6
Thirty minutes later, Ethan arrived at his quiet two-story suburban home in Naperville, Illinois.
The neighborhood was peaceful under the blanket of fresh winter snow, blissfully unaware of the storm brewing inside his heart.
Ethan walked into the nursery room—the room he and Clara had painted light blue just three weeks ago.
A wooden crib sat in the corner, surrounded by stuffed animals and baby clothes that would now never be worn.
Ethan stood in the center of the nursery, his body shaking with suppressed grief as he looked at the empty crib.
He walked over to the wooden wall clock shaped like an owl, taking it down from the wall.
Behind the clock, mounted inside a hollowed-out drywall compartment, was a small, black encrypted USB flash drive.
Clara had risked her life to steal this drive from Julian Vance’s private office at the docks.
Ethan plugged the drive into his military-grade encrypted laptop, typing in a complex decryption sequence.
Files instantly populated the screen—bank records, wire transfers, shipping manifests, and surveillance video footage.
The Vance empire wasn't just managing hedge funds; they were running a massive human trafficking and illegal weapons pipeline through the Port of Chicago.
And sitting at the top of the bribery chain was Senator Robert Harrington, the candidate running for Governor of Illinois.
Clara had uncovered the entire network, and that was why Julian Vance had ordered her execution.
Ethan closed the laptop, his eyes hardening like flint.
He walked into his master bedroom, pulling open his walk-in closet.
May you like
He moved a stack of shoe boxes, pressing his thumb against a concealed biometric scanner hidden in the hardwood floor.
A heavy steel floor safe clicked open with a hiss of pneumatic pressure.
