Chapter 4 - The Paper Trail of Greed
The silence in the conference room didn't just fall; it crushed the air right out of the room.
Eric’s face went from smug victory to an ashen, ghost-like white in less than two seconds. His jaw dropped slightly, his eyes glued to the massive screen where his own face was clearly visible, illuminated by the harsh overhead reading lights of the airplane cabin.
In the photograph, Eric was holding an open iPad. His eyes were locked directly on Luke’s profile. His fingers were frozen over a digital document titled MALLOW CYBERNETICS — PROPRIETARY DEFENSE CONTRACT AUDIT.
"That... that doesn't prove anything," Arthur Vance stammered, his confident demeanor cracking as he stood up from his chair to get a closer look at the screen. "My client was... he happened to be on the same flight!"
"On the same flight?" I breathed, staring at the screen, then turning to look at Eric in utter horror. "Eric... you were on that plane?!"
"He wasn't just on that plane, Clara," Luke said, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying register. "He tracked me to Denver three weeks ago. He bought a seat three rows ahead of me using a burner credit card under his corporate alias, Collins Logistics LLC."
Luke stepped closer to the screen, pointing to the open iPad in the photograph.
"Your ex-husband didn't discover this photo on a gossip blog four days ago, Clara," Luke revealed, looking directly at me. "He was following me. He’s been attempting to sell leaked internal schematics from my defense firm to a foreign competitor for the past six months. The only reason he hasn't been indicted yet is because the Department of Justice needed to prove he had direct physical proximity to my personal access node."
"You're lying!" Eric roared, slamming his hands onto the mahogany table as he stood up. "That's a photoshop! You fabricated that image!"
"The image carries a certified cryptographic timestamp and metadata verified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Collins," Luke replied calmly.
The conference room door opened, and two men in dark suits wearing brass badges on their belts stepped quietly into the room.
"Special Agent Sarah Jenkins," the lead officer said, pulling a folded document from her coat pocket. "Eric Collins, you are under arrest for corporate espionage, federal wire fraud, and extortion under the RICO Act."
"No!" Eric yelled, backing away toward the window. "Vance! Do something! Tell them!"
Vance backed away from Eric as if his client had suddenly caught a fatal disease. "I... I had no knowledge of these activities, Agent! I was merely representing Mr. Collins in a domestic custody dispute based on the information provided to me!"
"You might want to retain your own counsel, Mr. Vance," Agent Jenkins said dryly as her partner stepped forward, pulling Eric’s hands behind his back and clicking heavy steel handcuffs around his wrists. "Because we have wiretaps of you discussing the ten-million-dollar extortion demands with Mr. Collins late last night."
Eric thrashing against the agent's grip, his bloodshot eyes locking onto mine with venomous rage. "Clara! Tell them to stop! You’re my wife! You can't let them do this to me!"
"I'm not your wife, Eric," I said, stepping up beside Luke, my hand instinctively reaching out to hover near his arm. "And you spent the last year trying to starve me out of my own life. You don't get to ask for my help now."
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"You ruined me!" Eric screamed as he was dragged toward the door, his polished shoes sliding against the polished floorboards. "You ruined everything!"
"You ruined yourself, Eric," Luke said quietly as the heavy doors clicked shut behind the agents.
