Chapter 6 - Decryption
By the time I reached Marcus's van, I was covered in a cold sweat.
I tossed the flash drive onto his mobile workstation.
"Did you get it?" Clara asked, throwing her arms around me.
"I got it," I smiled, hugging her tightly. "Now let's see what the golden boy is hiding."
Marcus plugged the drive into his laptop.
His fingers flew across the keyboard as he bypassed the basic encryption Julian had stupidly relied on.
Rows of spreadsheets, bank transfers, and scanned documents flooded the screen.
Marcus let out a low whistle.
"This isn't just money laundering," Marcus said, his eyes scanning the data.
"This is extortion, bribery of city officials, and massive tax fraud."
"He's been stealing from his own investors to pay off the syndicate," Clara realized, reading over his shoulder.
"If this goes public, Julian won't just go bankrupt," I said, a grim sense of satisfaction washing over me.
"He's going to federal prison for a very long time."
The seventy-two-hour deadline Julian had given me was set to expire at noon the next day.
He expected me to drag Clara up his cobblestone driveway, begging for mercy so I could keep my little bakery.
Instead, I was going to deliver a hurricane straight to his front door.
"Print everything," I told Marcus.
"Make copies. Send the digital files to every major news outlet in Boston."
"And send a special package to the FBI field office."
May you like
Marcus grinned. "Consider it done, Eleanor."
We spent the rest of the night organizing the evidence, preparing the ultimate trap for the Sterling family.
