Chapter 10
The night before the shareholders meeting was the longest night of my life, spent entirely without sleep.
I sat by the large window of my rehabilitation room, watching the city lights flicker through the relentless downpour outside.
My leg throbbed with a dull, persistent ache, a physical reminder of how close I had come to being completely erased from existence.
At 3:15 AM, my phone buzzed on the table, the screen displaying a secure video link from Marcus.
I answered immediately, my heart hammering against my ribs as his face appeared on the screen, his raincoat dripping with water.
"We're inside the country house, Elena," he whispered, holding the camera up to show the interior of Adrian's private study.
The room was in disarray, drawers pulled out and papers scattered across the expensive mahogany desk.
"It looks like someone was here before us, trying to clean out the files in a hurry," Marcus said, moving the camera toward the wall where a painting had been knocked to the floor.
Behind it, the heavy iron door of the wall safe stood wide open, its contents completely emptied out.
My heart sank, a cold wave of disappointment washing over me as I realized Adrian might have beaten us to the evidence.
"Wait, look at this," Marcus continued, kneeling down by the open safe and pointing the camera at the floorboards directly beneath it.
A small, leather-bound notebook had slipped into the narrow gap between the heavy safe frame and the decorative wooden molding.
It was stained with dust, but otherwise perfectly intact, its dark cover bearing the familiar embossed initials of Adrian's personal stationery.
Marcus reached down, using a pair of gloved fingers to carefully slide the notebook out from the tight crevice.
He opened the pages, flipping through rows of handwritten figures, dates, and names that made my breath catch in my throat.
"It's all here, Elena," Marcus said, his voice trembling with a mixture of excitement and horror as he held a page up to the lens.
"There's a cash withdrawal of fifty thousand dollars dated five days before your accident, listed next to the initials 'C.B.'."
"Cassandra's brother, Christopher Bennett," I murmured, the final piece of the conspiracy falling perfectly into place.
"And right below it, a note about a 'network maintenance schedule' for the intersection of 5th and Elm on the exact afternoon of your crash."
"Adrian wrote down his own crimes like a common accountant," I said, a cold, dark satisfaction settling deep into my soul.
"He was so confident that you would be dead or broken that he never imagined anyone would look in this safe with a warrant or a key."
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"Take it directly to the federal prosecutor's office, Marcus, don't even wait for morning."
"Wake them up if you have to, tell them we have an active flight-risk suspect who is about to walk into a public boardroom in six hours."
