Chapter 5 - THE SHOWDOWN AT THE OFFICE
By 2:00 AM, the rain had stopped, leaving the streets of Seattle glistening like black obsidian under the streetlights.
I didn't stay at Maya’s office. I knew Daniel’s pattern. When his back was against the wall, he wouldn't stay at the house to face the police. He would try to reach the Blackwood Manufacturing headquarters in the industrial district of South Seattle, where the physical backup servers and the corporate safe were kept.
He believed that if he could destroy the physical hard drives in the server room, the state’s forensic case would collapse.
He didn't know that I had already cloned the entire server array to a secure cloud database three weeks ago.
When I arrived at the Blackwood corporate offices, the parking lot was empty, save for Daniel’s black luxury SUV parked crookedly near the front entrance. The glass door to the lobby was unlocked, the security guard nowhere to be found—likely sent home early by Daniel under some false pretense.
I walked into the quiet, dimly lit building, the sound of my sneakers squeaking softly against the polished linoleum.
The door to the executive suite was wide open. Inside, the lights were blazing.
Daniel was kneeling in front of the wall safe behind his father’s desk, his hands shaking as he stuffed stacks of cash and several corporate passports into a leather duffel bag. His hair was disheveled, his expensive tie undone, his face pale and covered in sweat.
"Looking for this?" I asked, leaning against the doorframe.
I held up a small, silver flash drive.
Daniel spun around so fast he hit his head on the open safe door. He scrambled to his feet, his eyes wide with a mixture of terror and feral rage when he saw me standing there, completely calm, wearing Maya's clean black sweater.
"Vivienne," he gasped, his chest heaving. "You... you bitch. You ruined me. You took everything!"
"You ruined yourself, Daniel," I said, stepping into the room. "You thought because I didn't complain when your mother insulted me, and because I didn't brag about my income, that I was stupid. You thought you could treat me like an object to be used and discarded when you were done."
"I made you!" he shouted, stepping toward me, his fists clenching at his sides. "You were nothing before you met me! A freelance accountant living in a rented apartment! I gave you this life! I gave you that house!"
"My Aunt Clara saved your father’s company with her own money," I said, my voice rising slightly, filled with an ancient, justified anger. "And you paid her back by trying to steal her legacy. You stole from your own employees, Daniel. Men and women who have worked in your factory for thirty years, trusting that their retirement was safe. You took their money to buy diamonds for a woman who doesn't even know your real middle name."
Daniel let out a low, animalistic growl and lunged at me.
But I didn't flinch.
Before he could reach me, two tall, broad-shouldered men in dark suits stepped out from the shadows of the hallway behind me. One of them caught Daniel by the arm, twisting it behind his back with a practiced, effortless grip, pinning him face-down against his father’s mahogany desk.
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The second man, a detective with the Seattle Police Department, pulled a pair of steel handcuffs from his belt.
"Daniel Blackwood," the detective said, his voice echoing in the quiet office. "You are under arrest for domestic assault, felony wire fraud, and grand larceny."
