Chapter 13: Blood and Ledger
The next forty-eight hours were a blur of tactical briefings and cold calculations. Jane sat at the head of a digital map table, surrounded by mercenaries and hackers whose faces were hardened by years of covert warfare. She was no longer the frightened runaway; she was the architect of her father’s destruction.
"The central ledger isn't just a bank account," Jane explained, her voice steady and devoid of emotion. "It’s a blackmail repository. Politicians, judges, international cartels—my father owns them all because he holds their sins on a closed-network server in the basement of the Vanguard Tower."
A hacker named Silas scoffed. "We know where it is, princess. The problem is the biometric lock. It requires a retinal scan and a blood sample from a direct bloodline. Your father."
"Or me," Jane said softly. The room went silent. "My biometrics are still in the system. He never purged them because he thought I would eventually break and come crawling back."
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Marcus stepped forward. "Getting you into that basement means walking you through the most heavily guarded corporate fortress on the East Coast."
"Then we don't walk," Jane said, her eyes dead and cold. "We bleed our way through."
