Chapter 4: The VIP Suite Retreat
I threw my weight against the heavy oak door of the private VIP suite, tumbling inside and throwing the manual deadbolt before Richard could catch up. The room was bathed in the cool blue-toned light filtering through the floor-to-ceiling smart glass windows overlooking the courtyard below. Outside, the flashing red and blue strobes of federal vehicles had finally begun to pierce the darkness, painting the courtyard in rhythmic pulses of color. Sirens wailed faintly through the double-paned glass, muffled but unmistakable.
I pressed my back against the locked door, breathing heavily, feeling the cool sweat on the back of my neck. My shoulder burned where Richard's fingers had dug into the scratch, and my asymmetrical black evening gown was torn slightly at the hem where I had tripped during the scramble down the hall.
A heavy knock rattled the oak door, followed immediately by Richard's muffled, furious voice.
"Open the door," Richard commanded, his fist striking the wood again. "You can't lock me out of my own suite. The police are downstairs—when they get up here, I'll tell them you staged a hostile takeover of the charity assets."
"Let them come up," I called out, my voice steady despite the adrenaline shaking my hands. I walked over to the mahogany desk where a secure terminal sat blinking with a green connection light. "They're already reviewing the server logs I forwarded from the ballroom floor. Your accounts are frozen, Richard. Every single one of them."
The rattling at the door stopped. For a long, tense moment, there was complete silence from the hallway, save for the muffled drone of sirens drifting up through the glass. Then came the sound of slow, heavy footsteps retreating down the carpeted corridor. He knew time had run out.
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I turned to the terminal and checked the upload status: ninety-eight percent complete. The complete financial ledger, detailing the systematic embezzlement of the children's medical fund into private offshore holdings, was seconds away from permanent distribution to the Department of Justice secure drop.
Outside the glass windows, the automated courtyard gates—the very perimeter locks my father had programmed decades ago—began to slide shut with an industrial groan, sealing the compound off entirely from any escaping vehicles.
