Chapter 13 - The Poisoned AppleWe didn't just have evidence; we had a loaded digital weapon. But to maximize Arthur’s destruction and ensure he could never threaten my children again, the execution had to be a public, inescapable spectacle.
I didn't fire Sarah. I called her into my office, projecting an aura of desperate defeat.
“Sarah, the company is going under,” I lied smoothly, staring into the eyes of the woman who had sold me out. “Our only hope is a massive, highly confidential merger with a Silicon Valley conglomerate. We are finalizing the digital signatures at the Global Tech Innovators Gala in San Francisco this Friday. If this merger goes through, we are saved.”
I handed her a fabricated, highly encrypted hard drive. “This contains the master source code for the merger. Guard it with your life.”
Sarah nodded, her hands shaking as she took the drive. “I won't let you down, Claire.”
The moment she left my office, Tới intercepted her communications. She immediately contacted Arthur Vance, offering to sell him the "master source code" that would supposedly grant him total control over the acquiring conglomerate.
Arthur took the bait instantly. His arrogance blinded him to the trap. He believed he was about to orchestrate the greatest corporate hijack of the decade.
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He didn't realize I had just fed him a poisoned apple. The hard drive didn't contain source code; it contained a hyper-aggressive, self-executing digital beacon designed by Giang. The moment Arthur plugged it into his secure servers, it would bypass all of his firewalls and illuminate his entire shadow empire to the federal government.
The stage was set.
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