The heavy footsteps echoing down the hallway of the 42nd floor didn’t belong to federal agents.
As the double glass doors swung open, two towering security guards clad in black suits stepped into Maya Sterling’s private suite. Between them stood Arthur Vance—the multi-billionaire chairman of the Vance Corporation and Julian’s uncle.
“You’ve become quite a disturbance, Maya,” Arthur said smoothly, stepping into the room while adjusting his cufflinks. “Julian was supposed to handle this outside quietly, but as usual, he turned it into a circus.”
Julian flinched, looking down. “Uncle, she sent the audio file to the prosecutors—”
“Silence, Julian,” Arthur interrupted, his voice dropping an octave. He turned his piercing gaze toward Maya. “The prosecutors won’t receive anything, Maya. The corporate server you just tried to upload that file to? We own the service provider. The transfer was intercepted ten seconds ago.”
Maya stood motionless behind her mahogany desk. Outside, the rain slashed against the glass windows, reflecting the flashing red lights of the city below.
“You can’t delete the truth, Arthur,” Maya said, her voice echoing clearly in the silent room. “You and Julian forged those offshore signatures together. The public saw the video outside the restaurant, and they know Julian was lying.”
“The public forgets in twenty-four hours,” Arthur replied with a cold, ruthless smile. He motioned to the guards behind him. “Hand over the flash drive and laptop, Maya. We’re going to walk you out of this building peacefully… or we can make sure you never work in this industry again.”
Julian stepped forward, a triumphant smirk returning to his face. “You thought you were three steps ahead, didn’t you? You have no evidence, no file, and no way out.”
Maya looked at the three men surrounding her desk. Slowly, she reached down toward her laptop dock.
“You’re right about one thing, Arthur,” Maya murmured softly.
She picked up her personal phone from the desk, turning the screen around to face them. On the display was a glowing red timer—and a live viewer count rapidly rising past 250,000.
“I didn’t upload the file to the corporate server,” Maya said, her voice loud and ringing with authority as she spoke directly into the phone’s microphone. “I streamed this entire room live to five major news networks the second your guards crossed my threshold.”
Arthur’s arrogant smirk froze. Julian’s mouth opened in horror as his eyes locked onto the screen, where thousands of comments were flooding in real-time…
(To be continued in Chapter 4…)
