Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Server
I returned to Miller Meridian Tower like a man possessed.
Instead of going to my executive suite, I bypassed the board floors and took the private express elevator straight down into the subterranean belly of the building—Sub-Level 4, home to the firm's central mainframe.
The chief technology officer, a frantic man named Aris, stumbled out of his glass office as I strode into the ice-cold server room.
"Mr. Miller! We weren't expecting you down here—"
"Pull up the master access logs for the Meridian Data Center project from five years ago," I demanded, grabbing a stool and pulling it toward the main console. "Filter by access ID: Vance, Emma."
Aris’s fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard. Within seconds, lines of green terminal text illuminated the dark room.
"Here it is, sir," Aris said, frowning. "Access granted on October 14, five years ago. 2:14 AM. A complete download of the encryption architecture for our offshore servers."
I stared at the screen. October 14 was the exact night I told Emma it was over. The night she stood in my doorway, tears pouring down her face, while I cold-heartedly told her she didn't fit into my future.
"Look at the IP address used to authorize the download, Aris," I said, pointing at the string of numbers at the bottom of the screen.
Aris zoomed in, his brow furrowing deeper. "Wait... that's strange. The authorization request originated from inside the building. From the Executive Suite."
"From my father's old terminal," I whispered, the realization hitting me like a physical punch to the chest.
My father had set Emma up before he died. He had used her credentials to pull the encryption keys, creating a fake paper trail to blackmail her into disappearing so she would never ruin his son's corporate ascension. And Victor had inherited that blackmail file.
Emma hadn't run away five years ago because she was broken-hearted—she ran because my family had threatened to frame her for corporate espionage and put her in prison forever if she ever tried to contact me. She had lived in hiding, raised my sons in silence, and only risked coming back when Victor’s men finally tracked her down.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Marcus.
"Boss," Marcus’s voice sounded urgent over the encrypted line. "We ran a trace on the Vance Global security vans that left Brooklyn this morning. One of them didn't head to Victor's private estate. It headed North toward the old Miller family estate in Upstate New York—the abandoned estate in Lake Placid."
"Is she there?" I demanded, turning toward the elevator.
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"High probability," Marcus confirmed. "We have thermal imaging showing three heat signatures inside the main lodge. One is stationary. She's tied up, Jason."
"Get the helicopter on the roof," I said, my heart pounding against my ribs like a sledgehammer. "We're going upstate."
