Chapter 5 - The Trap at the WarehouseBy 4:00 PM that afternoon, the news of the court-ordered eviction of Celeste Vance from the River Forest estate had spread across Chicago's financial social circles.
Celeste and Grant had moved into a temporary luxury suite at a hotel in Rosemont, funded by Grant's secondary corporate credit lines.
What Grant didn't know was that at 5:00 PM, his primary offshore accounts in Grand Cayman were hit with an emergency federal freeze order executed by Special Agent Marcus Sterling of the FBI.
Inside a dark, private office at the Rosemont hotel, Grant stood behind his desk, frantically typing on his laptop while Celeste wept on the sofa.
"The offshore server is locked!" Grant roared, slamming his fist flat against the desk. "The Cayman accounts are frozen! How the hell did the feds get the routing keys?!"
"It was the blue folder!" Celeste shrieked, clutching her head with both hands. "Nora found the blue folder! I told you we should have searched the safety deposit boxes in LaSalle Street!"
Grant’s phone rang sharply on the desk.
He snatched it up, pressing it to his ear. "Hello?!"
"Mr. Grant," a smooth, calm female voice answered through the speaker.
It was me.
Grant’s breath hitched violently in his throat. "Nora... you miserable little bitch—"
"I have the secondary hard drive, Grant," I interrupted softly, my voice smooth, quiet, and cold as winter ice. "The one Dad hidden behind the tax ledgers in his study."
Grant went dead silent. Sweat broke out across his forehead. "What... what hard drive?"
"The hard drive containing the audio recordings from your meeting on November 12th," I revealed, every word dropped like ice into deep water. "The meeting where you paid two hitmen four hundred thousand dollars to ambush my parents outside Dad's office."
Grant stumbled back against his leather chair, his jaw sagging open in pure, unadulterated terror. "You're... you're lying! There was no recording!"
"If you want to buy the hard drive before I hand it to Special Agent Sterling at six o'clock," I said cleanly, "bring five hundred thousand dollars in cash to Dad's old accounting warehouse on 4th Street in twenty minutes. Come alone."
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The line went dead.
Grant looked at Celeste, his eyes wild with desperate, unhinged survival. "Get the cash from the office safe, Celeste! We're going to 4th Street!"
