CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 6
The Enemy Was Already Inside the Company
The ballroom was no longer a place for celebration.
It had become a command center.
FBI agents sealed every entrance.
Hotel security escorted the guests into separate lounges for questioning.
No one was allowed to leave.
Samuel, Adrian, Detective Helen Brooks, and Richard Mercer gathered inside a private meeting room overlooking the Las Vegas Strip.
Helen placed a laptop on the table.
"We traced the anonymous messages."
She pressed Enter.
A corporate server log appeared.
Every message...
Every livestream comment...
Every fake warning...
Every hacked presentation...
Originated from a secure server inside Mercer Global Headquarters in New York.
Adrian stared at the screen.
"So the attacker was inside the company all along."
Helen nodded.
"But not from someone's office."
She zoomed in.
"The access came from the Executive Board Archive."
Richard's face hardened.
"That archive is offline."
"It isn't supposed to have internet access."
"Exactly."
Helen replied.
"Someone physically entered the archive tonight."
Silence.
Samuel slowly leaned back.
"That's impossible."
Richard looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because the archive requires two biometric scans."
"My fingerprint..."
"...and yours."
The room fell silent.
Adrian whispered,
"So either one of you opened it..."
"...or someone copied your biometrics."
Before anyone could respond...
Richard's personal assistant burst into the room.
"Mr. Mercer..."
"The board archive has been emptied."
Everyone froze.
"What?"
"The financial files..."
"The merger contracts..."
"The shareholder agreements..."
"They're gone."
Helen immediately contacted the FBI cyber unit.
Less than a minute later...
An agent looked up from his headset.
"We found the transfer."
"Where?"
"Not overseas."
"Not a hacker."
"The files were downloaded onto a physical drive."
Samuel frowned.
"So someone walked into headquarters..."
"...while everyone was watching my birthday livestream."
Helen slowly nodded.
"The livestream wasn't the crime."
"It was the distraction."
Adrian suddenly remembered something.
"The comments..."
"The anonymous account kept pushing people to watch."
Samuel looked at him.
"They wanted every executive focused on the ballroom."
Richard quietly finished the thought.
"So no one would notice..."
"...what was happening in New York."
Silence filled the room.
For months...
Everyone believed the target was Samuel Mercer.
Tonight...
They finally realized...
The target had always been the company itself.
Then the conference room television suddenly switched on by itself.
A black screen.
White letters.
Only one sentence.
You protected the wrong thing.
The screen went black again.
No one spoke.
Not because they were afraid.
Because, for the first time...
They understood the scale of what they were facing.
This wasn't a family betrayal.
This wasn't a fight over inheritance.
This was a carefully planned corporate conspiracy that had begun long before the birthday party...
...and tonight was only the first successful move.
👇 Chapter 7
