Chapter 6 - The Brother’s Counterattack
By six o'clock the next morning, Gabriel’s mountain cabin had been transformed into a military command center. Sarah had set up a makeshift pediatric triage station in the guest bedroom to monitor my blood pressure and Leo’s fetal movements every two hours, while Gabriel sat at his wall of monitors, mapping out the digital architecture of the Vance Securities skyscraper in downtown Boston.
I sat at the kitchen island, drinking a protein smoothie Sarah had prepared, watching my brother rapidly type lines of code into his terminal. Despite the exhausting thirty-five weeks of weight pulling at my lower back, my mind was sharper and clearer than it had been in years. The fog of gaslighting that Julian and his family had wrapped around me was completely gone.
"How do we bypass Arthur's corporate firewall from New Hampshire?" I asked, walking over to stand behind Gabriel's ergonomic chair. "You said his tech firm designed the security protocols themselves."
"They designed the external firewalls," Gabriel corrected, pointing to a schematic of the skyscraper's forty-second floor on his left screen. "The external perimeter is fortress-grade. But like most arrogant billionaires, Arthur left a massive vulnerability in his internal physical infrastructure. The executive boardroom on the top floor has a dedicated, hardwired server terminal used for high-frequency financial transfers that doesn't connect to the public cloud."
"Which means someone has to be inside the building to plug a drive into that terminal," I realized, my heart skipping a beat.
"Not just anyone," Gabriel turned around, looking at me with serious, assessing eyes. "The terminal requires a biometric dual-authentication override to access the offshore Cayman accounts where Arthur is hiding the trust fund transfer orders. It requires an executive passcard... and a fingerprint scan from someone registered as a corporate signatory."
"I’m not a signatory on Vance Securities," I said, shaking my head.
"No," Gabriel said smoothly, pulling up a scanned PDF of a corporate registry document from three weeks ago. "But your husband is. When Arthur began setting up the conservatorship framework last month, he added Julian as a primary vice-president of the holding company so Julian could legally sign the trust liquidation papers on your behalf."
"So we need Julian’s fingerprint," I said, a bitter, humorless smile touching my lips. "Good luck getting him to help us. He’s probably sitting in his father's office right now practicing his grief face for the news cameras."
"We don't need Julian to volunteer," Sarah said, walking into the living room and tossing a small, clear plastic evidence bag onto the desk next to Gabriel's keyboard. Inside the bag was a high-resolution silicone lift tape containing a clean, perfect thumbprint.
I stared at the bag in shock. "Where did you get that?"
"From the rearview mirror of your SUV," Sarah grinned, leaning against the desk. "When Gabriel had me tow your vehicle out of the Mass General parking garage last night before the police impounded it, I ran a forensic print sweep on the interior. Julian drove your car to brunch yesterday morning. He adjusted the mirror with his right thumb. We already ran the ridges through a 3D resin printer in the basement—we have a functional biometric silicone mold of your husband's thumb ready to go."
I looked between Gabriel and Sarah, overwhelming gratitude welling up inside me. While I had been weeping on the hospital bed, they had been systematically building a trap to catch the predators who tried to destroy my child.
"I’m coming with you to Boston tonight," I said firmly.
Gabriel immediately shook his head. "No way, Elena. You’re thirty-five weeks pregnant, your blood pressure is volatile, and Arthur’s private security contractors are patrolling every block surrounding that financial tower. You stay here with Sarah where it’s safe."
"Gabriel, look at me," I said, stepping forward and placing my hand flat on his desk, forcing him to meet my gaze. "Arthur Vance stood in his kitchen and told his son to strike my unborn baby. He bribed a doctor to cut me open and steal my son. This is my fight. If you walk into that boardroom tonight without me, Arthur's lawyers will claim you’re just a disgruntled, estranged brother committing corporate espionage. But if I stand in front of that board of directors with my pregnant belly and the recording of Julian's confession... they won't be able to spin a single word."
Gabriel stared at me for a long, tense moment, searching my face for any sign of physical weakness or hesitation. What he found was the unshakeable, primal resolve of a mother protecting her child.
He let out a slow, resigned sigh and reached into his desk drawer, pulling out a small, encrypted micro-earpiece and handing it to me.
May you like
"Sarah comes with us as your personal medical escort," Gabriel ordered, his tone leaving no room for argument. "You wear a Kevlar ballistic vest beneath your maternity coat, and if I give the evacuation code over the comms, you don't ask questions—you run to the extraction elevator immediately. Understood?"
"Understood," I said, taking the earpiece and sliding it into my pocket. "Let's go take down an empire."
