Chapter 82 - The Phantom Account
Panic was a luxury Elena couldn't afford. Years of navigating the ruthless corporate underworld had forged her into steel. She took a slow, deep breath, anchoring her racing thoughts, and turned to Marcus, whose eyes mirrored her own shock but burned with fierce loyalty.
"Trace the IP address of the override," Elena commanded, her voice steady and commanding. "They think they can corner us in our own home? Let's show them who they're dealing with."
Marcus nodded, immediately pulling out his tablet and furiously typing lines of code that reflected in his glasses. "The firewall is heavily encrypted, but whoever did this used a legacy protocol—something tied to the old Vanguard Corporation archives. It’s an inside job, Elena. Someone with clearance from the very beginning."
Elena paced the length of the antique rug. The Vanguard Corporation. That name brought back a flood of bitter memories—the very entity her father had fought tooth and nail before his untimely demise. If the ghosts of Vanguard were reaching out from their graves, it meant an old enemy had survived the purge.
"Could it be Julian?" Marcus muttered, his fingers flying across the screen.
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"No," Elena replied instantly, shaking her head. "Julian is behind bars, serving a life sentence without parole. He doesn't have access to high-end encryption tools or offshore routing networks from a maximum-security cell. Unless..." A cold realization washed over her. "Unless he had a partner. Someone we never saw."
Suddenly, the screen on Marcus's tablet flashed bright crimson. A single line of text appeared, blinking mockingly: Check the clock tower at midnight.
