CHAPTER 4: The House of Cards
The boardroom erupted into absolute chaos. Board members stood up, demanding explanations, while Adrian turned a sickly shade of green, staring at the screen as if looking at a ghost.
"This meeting is adjourned!" Adrian shouted, his voice cracking with panic. "Security! Shut down the main monitors!"
"The security team answers to me, Adrian," Maya replied smoothly. "They always have."
The double doors of the boardroom swung open, but it wasn't the building's standard security guards who walked in. It was a team of federal agents, led by a stern-faced investigator holding a stack of federal warrants.
"Adrian Ashford, Veronica Ashford," the lead agent announced, his voice booming over the noise. "You are under arrest for corporate fraud, grand larceny, conspiracy, and attempted kidnapping."
"Kidnapping?" Veronica shrieked, backing away toward the glass windows. "This is an outrage! We are the Ashfords! You can't touch us!"
"We have the complete digital forensic trail," Evelyn Vance said, stepping away from Adrian and aligning herself squarely with the federal agents. She pulled up a document on her tablet, casting it to the main screen beside Maya’s video feed. "At 11:45 PM last night, a biometric command was issued to the Ashford family vault, locking Maya Vale inside. However, what Mr. Ashford didn't realize is that Maya’s tech architecture logs every single user access token. The system recorded Adrian's specific biological signature approving the lockdown, followed by a manual override of the vault's life support system to reduce oxygen levels."
The board members looked at Adrian with horror. He had tried to suffocate his own wife for her company.
"Maya, please," Adrian begged, looking directly at the camera, his hands trembling. "My mother forced me into this! It was her idea! She said we needed to secure the legacy!"
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"You cut my hair, Adrian," Maya said, her expression unchanging. "You thought you were stripping away my dignity. But you forgot that my empire wasn't built on my appearance. It was built on my mind. And my mind just evicted you from my life, my company, and my city."
As the federal agents stepped forward, clicking handcuffs around Adrian and Veronica’s wrists, Celine and Maribel tried to slip out the back, but they were quickly intercepted by two more agents waiting in the hallway.
