My Country Star Husband Flaunted His Mistress—So I Vanished With His Unborn Baby And Let His Entire Empire Burn / Chapter 8 / 20

Chapter 8 - The Music Row AmbushTo hack an impenetrable fortress, you don't break down the front door. You use the architect who built the walls.

We landed in Nashville under the cover of darkness. The glittering, neon-drenched skyline of Music Row brought back a rush of toxic memories—the flashbulbs, the screaming fans, the suffocating golden cage. But I wasn't the trapped bird anymore. I was the predator.

We met Liam in the underground parking garage of a deserted studio. He looked healthier than he had in a decade, his eyes sharp and focused. He handed Jack a sleek, encrypted keycard and a localized EMP device.

"The vault is on the penthouse floor," Liam explained, spreading a digital schematic over the hood of his truck. "The primary elevators require biometric scans, but the secondary freight elevator is on a closed-loop analog system. Jack, with your engineering background, you can bypass the relay."

"What about the security detail?" Jack asked, radiating a quiet, lethal menace as he inspected the EMP device.

"There are four armed guards on the penthouse level," Liam said. "But at exactly 2:00 A.M., the automated servers run a global backup that temporarily dims the security grid for ninety seconds. That’s your window to hit the vault, copy the physical ledgers, and get out."

"Let’s go hunting," Jack rumbled.

At 1:45 A.M., Jack and I stood in the humid darkness of the alleyway behind the towering glass monolith of Hayes Media Group. Jack moved with terrifying efficiency, overriding the freight elevator’s analog relay in seconds. We ascended in absolute silence.

The doors slid open to the penthouse. The corridor was bathed in sterile white light, ending in a massive, reinforced titanium vault door.

At precisely 2:00 A.M., the lights flickered and dimmed to a low red glow. The security grid rebooted.

Jack sprinted down the hall, attaching the localized EMP to the biometric scanner of the vault. With a sharp, electric crack, the magnetic locks fried. I stepped forward, punching in the master override code Liam had given us.

The heavy steel door swung open.

Inside the vault, rows of safety deposit boxes lined the walls. I went straight to box 804—Eleanor’s personal lockbox. Jack expertly picked the analog tumbler.

Inside rested a thick, leather-bound ledger. I opened it. It was a masterpiece of corporate crime. Decades of unredacted offshore wire transfers, proving Eleanor had systematically stolen over four hundred million dollars from her own artists to fund her shadow empire.

"We have it," I whispered, the adrenaline flooding my veins. I pulled a high-resolution scanner from my bag and began rapidly digitizing the pages.

Suddenly, the red emergency lights vanished. The stark white overheads blazed back to life.

"The grid rebooted early," Jack hissed, checking his watch.

Heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor. "Hey! The vault door is open!" a guard shouted.

Jack didn't panic. He pulled me behind him, his towering frame shielding me entirely. As the two armed guards rushed into the vault, Jack moved with the speed of a striking viper. He disarmed the first guard with a brutal, calculating strike to the wrist, driving his shoulder into the second guard's chest, sending them both crashing into the steel wall.

"The files are copied!" I shouted, securing the encrypted flash drive.