Chapter 6 - Sins of the Father(Target: 2,000 words - Focus: Richard Vance attempts a desperate criminal scheme to steal corporate data; Aria traps him and exposes their historical financial crimes.)
With Beatrice behind bars and Ethan drowning in lawsuits, Richard Vance—the patriarch—made one final, desperate, criminal gamble. He still possessed an old, cloned security keycard from his time at the Apex research facility. He believed that if he could break into the local server room and steal the proprietary patents for Apex’s upcoming green-energy technology, he could sell it to a rival foreign conglomerate for fifty million dollars on the black market—enough to buy his family’s freedom.
At 2:00 AM, Richard bypassed the outer perimeter of the Apex tech tower, slipping through the loading docks. He reached the server room, his heart pounding as he swiped the cloned card. The light flashed green.
"Idiots," Richard muttered, a greedy smile crossing his face as he pushed the heavy door open. "Aria thinks she’s a genius, but she left the back door wide open."
He stepped inside the dark, humming server room, pulling a flash drive from his jacket.
Suddenly, the overhead fluorescent lights flashed on, blinding him.
Richard gasped, dropping his flash drive.
Sitting in a comfortable ergonomic chair in the center of the server room was me. Beside me stood Marcus and four federal cyber-crimes investigators.
"Hello, Richard," I said, spinning my chair around. "I’ve been waiting for you."
"Aria... I... I was just coming to retrieve some personal files," Richard lied, his voice cracking as he stepped back toward the door, only to find it blocked by two federal agents.
"You came to commit corporate espionage, Richard. Which carries a mandatory federal sentence of fifteen years," I said, standing up, my pregnant belly beautifully defined under a soft velvet gown. "But while you were downloading those fake patents we planted as bait, my team was uploading something else from your old hard drives."
Marcus projected a document onto the server room wall. It was a forensic accounting audit dating back five years—long before I met Ethan.
"You see, Richard, I didn't choose Ethan at random," I revealed, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "Five years ago, your private logistics company was embezzling millions from an orphanage foundation that my father established. You drove that foundation into bankruptcy, causing my father’s health to fail. I entered Ethan’s life to see if his family was truly as rotten as the financial records suggested."
Richard’s eyes widened in absolute terror. "You... you knew? From the very beginning?"
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"I wanted to see if the son was different from the father," I said, walking past him toward the exit. "But it turns out, the apple doesn't rot far from the tree. You stole from orphans, Richard. And your wife tried to hurt my child. The Vance family legacy ends tonight."
The federal agents stepped forward, clicking handcuffs onto Richard’s wrists as he collapsed to his knees, weeping.
