Chapter 6 - THE RETALIATION
The peace was short-lived.
Three days later, while staying at a private estate secured by Daniel's team, news broke that sent shockwaves through the financial sector. Olivia Hale had posted a record twenty-million-dollar bail, funded by a secretive consortium of international offshore backers tied to her family’s legacy wealth.
Within hours of her release, a massive cyberattack hit Parker Tech. The firm’s global data infrastructure—which hosted cloud servers for major hospitals, emergency services, and financial institutions—began shutting down in cascading waves.
Ethan sat in his temporary war room at Daniel's headquarters, surrounded by glowing monitors and frantic engineers.
"It's a zero-day exploit built into the core firmware," his chief technology officer reported over encrypted comms. "Ethan, whoever launched this had access to the master security keys you created eight years ago. They're wiping the servers clean and demanding a complete transfer of Parker Tech’s core patents to an offshore entity, or they'll permanently delete the system logs."
"It's Olivia," Ethan said grimly. "She knows she can't win in court, so she's trying to scorch the earth. If the servers stay down for more than six hours, public infrastructure collapses and Parker Tech goes bankrupt from liability."
"She's forcing you to meet her," Daniel said, walking into the room holding a secure radio handset. "Her lawyer just sent a direct communication channel request. She will only provide the decryption key to you, face-to-face."
Nora, who had been sitting quietly in the corner reviewing corporate timeline records with Daniel’s assistants, stood up. "Ethan, it's a trap. She knows she's facing prison time. She has nothing left to lose."
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"I have to go," Ethan said, looking at Nora with absolute resolve. "Eight years ago, I ran away from my problems and let her take control. I'm not running anymore. But this time, I'm not going alone."
Ethan turned to Daniel. "Set up the tactical response team. We give her the impression that I'm coming alone, but we trap her in her own game."
