Chapter 22 - an old cassette
Grace carefully placed the digital audio transfer from the crash investigation unit into the secure audio deck. The audio file had been retrieved from an auxiliary cockpit recorder that had miraculously survived the wreckage inside a salvage depot. Beside her, Ethan stared at the audio wave visualizer, his breathing measured and heavy. As the static cleared, the familiar voice of his older brother Arthur filled the room, conversing calmly with his co-pilot before sudden alarms began shrilling through the cabin speakers. Arthur’s final transmission was not a desperate plea for rescue, but an alarming warning: the navigation console had been remotely overridden, and a voice over the ground control channel had demanded the immediate surrender of the Caldwell tech patents in exchange for emergency override codes. The name mentioned over the radio crackled through the static with bone-chilling clarity: Victor Sterling, Ethan’s former senior venture partner who had allegedly retired to Switzerland years earlier. Lily suddenly entered the study holding a drawing pad, stopping in her tracks upon hearing her late father’s voice. Grace moved instantly, sliding between the desk and the door to wrap the young girl in a warm embrace before the harrowing sound of impact could play. She lowered the volume with her free hand, resting her cheek against Lily’s forehead. Lily looked up, her dark eyes welling with silent tears, but she did not retreat into mutism this time. Instead, she whispered that she remembered that name; the man with the gold serpent cane had visited their penthouse days before the flight. Ethan knelt beside his niece, pressing his forehead against hers in fierce, unyielding solidarity. The conspiracy was far broader than Sabrina’s domestic cruelty or Vance’s petty corporate blackmail; it was a calculated blood feud orchestrated by a ruthless shadow titan who would stop at nothing to possess the entire Caldwell dynasty and annihilate anyone standing in his way.
