HE MOVED HIS WAITRESS MISTRESS INTO MY MANSION ON DAY ONE OF OUR DIVORCE—HE DIDN’T KNOW I ENGINEERED HIS ENTIRE EMPIRE / Chapter 7 / 24

Chapter 7 - The Vanguard TrapVanguard Capital was notorious on Wall Street. They were vulture capitalists, specializing in hostile takeovers, corporate espionage, and buying distressed assets for pennies on the dollar. If Julian was attempting to sell our proprietary source code to them, he was committing a federal crime that carried a twenty-year prison sentence.

He was a desperate, drowning man trying to drag me under the water with him.

By Friday morning, my office had been transformed into a war room. Arthur stood by the smart-board, projecting the intercepted digital footprints, while Sarah Vance, my ruthless litigator, paced the length of the room.

“Julian is sloppy, but he isn't stupid enough to send the source code over a traceable email,” Sarah stated, chewing on the end of her pen. “He’s scheduled a face-to-face meeting tonight with Damian Cross, the CEO of Vanguard. They are meeting at the St. Regis Hotel gala. Julian plans to hand over the physical hard drive in exchange for a twenty-million-dollar offshore wire transfer.”

“Twenty million to restart his life, and he burns my empire to the ground in the process,” I sneered, leaning against my desk, crossing my arms.

“If Damian Cross walks out of that gala with our source code, Mercer Holdings loses its competitive advantage in the global market. Our stock will plummet fifty percent by Monday,” Arthur warned, his jaw clenched tight. “We have to intercept the drive.”

“No,” I said, a dark, dangerous smile slowly spreading across my face.

Arthur and Sarah both looked at me, confused.

“If we intercept the drive, Julian claims it was a misunderstanding. He claims he was hacked, or framed. We don't just want to stop the sale. We want to catch him in the act, surrounded by witnesses,” I explained, my mind operating with cold, architectural precision. “I don't just want to protect the company. I want to ruin him.”

“Claire, if you let him make the handoff, the risk is catastrophic,” Sarah warned.

“There is no risk if the handoff is a trap,” I replied smoothly. I turned to my head of cybersecurity, who was typing furiously in the corner. “Can you isolate the hard drive Julian is planning to use? Can you access it remotely if it connects to our internal network?”

“Yes, boss,” the tech replied. “He’s using his old CEO credentials to access the vault. I monitored the download an hour ago.”

“Perfect,” I whispered. “Don't block the download. Let him take the code. But I want you to plant a localized, aggressive Trojan virus inside the files. When Damian Cross plugs that drive into a Vanguard computer, I don't want him to see our algorithms. I want him to see a countdown timer that wipes his entire server.”

Arthur let out a low, impressed chuckle, a look of profound admiration crossing his features. “You’re weaponizing his own treason.”

“Exactly,” I said, turning to look out the window at the sprawling city below. “Julian wants to play spy games at a high-society gala. So, we are going to get dressed up, attend the party, and watch him walk blindly into a federal indictment.”

That evening, I stood in front of the full-length mirror in my penthouse suite. I was not wearing the conservative, accommodating dresses Julian had always preferred. I was wearing a backless, sweeping gown of blood-red silk that clung to my curves and pooled around my feet like liquid fire. My hair was swept up into a severe, elegant chignon, and a diamond choker rested against my throat.

I looked like a woman who had walked through hell and emerged owning the flames.

Arthur arrived at exactly 7:00 P.M. He wore a classic, tailored black tuxedo, looking devastatingly handsome and infinitely dangerous. When he saw me, he stopped dead in his tracks, the breath catching in his throat.

“You look...” Arthur murmured, stepping closer, his eyes drinking me in. “Lethal.”

“That is the goal, Mr. Sterling,” I smiled, accepting his arm.