Chapter 23 - The private vault
"Don't move, Mr. Weston," Marcus commanded, keeping his gun locked on the lead guard. "Federal jurisdiction is already active inside this building. Your private security team has no authority here."
Arthur smiled, a thin, patronizing curl of his lips. "Jurisdiction belongs to those who control the narrative, young man. By morning, the evening broadcast will announce that an unexploded ordnance from the transport van breached the second floor. A tragic domestic tragedy will follow."
Maya stepped out from behind Garrett before anyone could stop her. Her face was pale, but her hands were steady. "You’re lying, Arthur."
The old man frowned slightly, surprised by the waitress’s composure. "Excuse me?"
"You didn't come here to kill us," Maya said, her voice ringing clear against the cracked tiles. "If your men wanted to shoot, they would have fired the moment that door opened. You came here in person because whatever is in this cylinder, you don't just want to destroy it. You need something from it."
Garrett caught Maya's train of thought immediately. He glanced down at the parchment in his hand. Below the signature was an alphanumeric code—a private key to a decentralized vault that required two living physical biometric confirmations to open.
"The Weston ancestral vault," Garrett realized out loud, his eyes narrowing at his uncle. "Father didn't just hide Maya's birth certificate. He locked the primary voting shares inside a cold-storage cryptographic ledger. And the key requires Margaret's fingerprint and Maya’s retinal scan."
Arthur’s polite expression vanished, replaced by an icy, ruthless glare. The mask of the benevolent elder had completely disintegrated. "Hand over the ledger cylinder, Garrett. Or Margaret will not survive the walk down those stairs."
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Suddenly, the fire alarms shifted pitch, and the heavy pneumatic shutters of the judicial corridor slammed shut behind Arthur's men, trapping them in the narrow foyer.
👉 Marcus triggered the emergency lockdown panel on the wall, cutting the lights entirely and plunging the entire floor into pitch darkness.
