Chapter 7 - The Mountain SiegeYou do not fight a billionaire predator by playing defense. By the time you build a wall, they have already poisoned the well behind it.
By sunset, our timber-frame home had been transformed into a militarized intelligence bunker. Jack stood at the head of our heavy oak dining table, his jaw locked so tightly the muscles ticked beneath his skin, projecting the financial forensics of his company onto a monitor.
"She wasn't bluffing," Jack growled, his dark eyes burning with a terrifying, apocalyptic rage. "The federal injunction just hit our primary operating accounts. The supply chains are frozen. Eleanor used a network of offshore shell companies to inject dirty capital into my vendor accounts and then tipped off the SEC."
"She thinks she can use the federal government as a weapon to steal my son," I whispered, the fire in my veins turning to liquid nitrogen.
Jack walked over to me, wrapping his strong, heavy arms around my shoulders, pulling me flush against his solid chest. "She is not taking Tommy, Harper. And she is not taking this company. I will tear her empire apart with my bare hands if I have to."
"We can't fight her with brute force, Jack," I said, my mind operating with cold, architectural precision. "Eleanor thrives in courtrooms. If we try to fight the injunction legally, we will be tied up for years, and Tommy goes into state custody in the meantime. We have to sever the puppet strings at the source."
I pulled out my encrypted phone and dialed a number I hadn't called in three years.
Liam answered on the second ring. "Harper? Is Tommy okay?"
"Tommy is fine, Liam. But your mother just showed up at my house with a federal indictment against Jack," I said, my voice echoing with absolute authority. "She’s trying to frame him for money laundering to force me to hand over custody of Tommy, so she can extort you into signing the catalog buyout."
There was a dead silence on the line, followed by the sound of glass shattering as Liam threw something against a wall.
"She is a monster," Liam breathed, his voice vibrating with pure, unadulterated fury. "Harper, I swear to God, I didn't know."
"I know you didn't," I replied smoothly. "But I need the weapon to destroy her. What is Eleanor hiding?"
"The artist trusts," Liam didn't hesitate. The sober, clear-headed man on the phone was a completely different person from the rockstar I had left. "For two decades, she has been skimming royalties from the heritage artists on the label to fund her private European real estate acquisitions. The digital trails are scrubbed, but Eleanor is old-school. She keeps the physical, unredacted offshore ledgers in the biometric vault at the Hayes Media Group headquarters in Nashville."
"If we get those ledgers, we can trigger an immediate federal RICO investigation," Jack deduced, stepping closer to the phone. "The DOJ will freeze her assets and vacate the fabricated charges against me."
"I have the master override code for the vault," Liam said. "I can get you in. But the building is guarded by elite private security."
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I looked out the bay window at the dark, sprawling Montana mountains. The peaceful sanctuary was beautiful, but the queen had to return to the chessboard.
"Jack," I said softly, a dark, terrifying smile spreading across my face. "Fuel the jet. We are going back to Nashville."
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