Chapter 3 - The Vanishing Evidence
The moment Julian walked free from the precinct, his vast network went to work trying to erase Clara from existence.
By midnight, Clara’s medical records at Saint Jude’s Hospital began mysteriously disappearing from the digital database. The blood samples taken during her admission vanished from the pathology lab during an unexplainable "power grid glitch."
"They're cleaning house," Leo realized, looking out the hospital room window at a suspicious black SUV parked across the street. "They aren't just going to fight this in court, Clara. Julian is going to finish what he started."
"We can't stay here," Clara said, swinging her legs over the bed despite her weakness. "Julian owns the hospital board. Every minute we stay, we're sitting ducks."
Working with Detective Reed, who realized his own department was compromised, Leo staged an escape through the hospital’s basement service tunnels. Clad in nurse scrubs, Clara and Leo slipped into an unmarked utility van just as two armed men dressed as orderlies entered Clara’s room upstairs with lethal doses of potassium chloride.
They drove straight to a secure safehouse outside the city limits—an abandoned lighthouse owned by Leo's family.
"Julian thinks he's untouchable because he holds everyone's secrets," Clara said, shivering under a thick wool blanket as Leo built a fire in the hearth. "But I know where he keeps his real ledger."
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"Where?" Leo asked.
"In a private offshore server room hidden beneath his private estate in Newport," Clara revealed. "It contains every financial transfer, every bribe, and the names of every official on his payroll. If we get that server, we don't just defeat Julian—we burn his entire empire to the ground."
