Chapter 3 - The Digital StrikeThe next morning, sunlight cut sharply through the heavy clouds over Lake Michigan, casting long, bright beams across the minimalist white interior of Luca’s penthouse.
I sat at a sleek glass desk in the corner of the study, a secure, military-grade laptop open before me. My hair was tied back in a loose bun, and I wore an oversized cashmere sweater Luca had provided. My feet were bandaged and resting on a velvet footstool.
Behind me, standing near the window with a cup of black coffee, Luca watched silently as my fingers flew across the keyboard.
“The first batch of files is ready,” I said, my heart pounding against my ribs. “I’m routing the encrypted archive directly to the financial crimes division of the SEC, as well as an anonymous drop folder for the Chicago Tribune’s investigative desk.”
“Make sure the metadata is scrubbed,” Luca reminded me, stepping closer to rest a hand on the back of my chair. His presence was warm, grounding, and intoxicatingly close. “Damian has cyber-surveillance teams monitoring node activity across the state. If they trace the ping back to this IP address, they’ll have our coordinates within minutes.”
“I’m routing it through seven proxy servers in Zurich and Tokyo,” I replied without looking up, a faint smile touching my lips. “Even their best engineers will think the data is coming from an abandoned server in Singapore.”
I paused my finger over the enter key.
For a second, the gravity of what I was about to do pressed down on my chest. Once I hit send, there was no turning back. My father would know instantly that I had betrayed him. Damian would unleash every assassin, lawyer, and corrupt cop at his disposal to hunt me down. My old life—the quiet, suffocating cage I had lived in since my mother died—would be gone forever.
Luca seemed to sense the hesitation in my posture.
He leaned down slightly, his lips brushing my ear as he spoke in a low, steady murmur.
“Breathe, Victoria. Look at the screen. Not at the past. Every keystroke is a nail in their coffins. Take what they stole from you back.”
His words acted like an anchor.
I exhaled slowly, aligned the cursor, and pressed ENTER.
Sent.
On the screen, a progress bar flashed green as the gigabytes of encrypted financial records, audio transcripts of secret board meetings, and scanned signatures of forged deeds uploaded into the global ether.
“It’s done,” I whispered.
Almost immediately, Luca’s encrypted burner phone on the desk began to buzz. Then buzzed again. Then rang continuously in a frantic rhythm.
Luca picked it up, glancing at the caller ID, and a slow, wicked smile spread across his face.
“Talk to me, Mateo,” Luca answered on speaker.
“Boss, you need to see the financial tickers right now,” Mateo’s voice crackled through the speaker, breathless and hurried. “Within thirty seconds of that drop, Vale Holdings stock dropped twelve points on the pre-market exchange. Their institutional investors are pulling out en masse, and the SEC just announced an emergency freeze on all commercial real estate transactions tied to Victoria’s family foundation.”
I stared at the screen, a breathless laugh escaping my lips.
“And Damian?” I asked quickly.
“He’s screaming so loud the security guards can hear him through his office door,” Mateo replied with a chuckle. “He’s holding a press conference in two hours trying to deny the embezzlement, but his chief accountant just walked out of headquarters with two federal agents following him.”
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Luca ended the call and tossed the phone onto the desk. He looked down at me, his eyes dark, intense, and filled with a dangerous kind of pride.
“Well, Mrs. Vale-that-never-was,” Luca said softly, resting his hand on my shoulder. “You just declared war on the most dangerous men in Illinois. And you won round one.”
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