Chapter 56 The Trap Within a Trap
Aria POV
The heavy silence that followed my question didn't last long, because Mr. Sterling signaled to the two guards by the door with a sharp flick of his wrist. I could see the cold intent in his eyes, and it became clear that they weren't interested in the logic of my defense anymore, since the goal was never a fair trial but a quiet abduction.
The executives began to close their folders as if the meeting were already over, and I felt the air in the room grow heavy with the threat of what "questioning" by the Syndicate actually meant for someone like me. Delilah stood up and smoothed her skirt, looking at me with a smirk that suggested she was already imagining me locked away in some windowless basement where Grayson would never find me.
"We’ve heard enough of your theories, Aria, and the board has sufficient evidence to hand you over to our private security detail for a more thorough investigation into these breaches," Sterling said, his voice dropping into a low, menacing tone while the guards stepped away from the wall and began walking toward me.
"If you cooperate, we might be able to negotiate a more lenient sentence, but if you continue to make a scene, I can't guarantee your safety during the transport."
I felt a surge of adrenaline, but I didn't move an inch because I saw Jax out of the corner of my eye. He had been hunched over his small handheld device for the last twenty minutes, and just as the first guard reached out to grab my arm, Jax looked up and gave me a sharp, intentional nod.
He tapped a final key on his screen, and suddenly the boardroom’s massive projector flickered, the image of the fake bank account vanishing and being replaced by a complex map of digital routing paths and hardware serial numbers.
"I wouldn't touch her just yet if I were you, because we just finished a real-time trace on those 'spy files' you were so happy to show everyone," I said, standing up so quickly that my chair scraped loudly against the floor and made the executives jump.
I pointed at the screen where a bright red dot was pulsing over a schematic of the very building we were sitting in, and I felt a wave of cold satisfaction wash over me as I saw Jess’s face go from smug to a ghostly shade of white.
"You want to talk about espionage, so let's talk about why the files on my laptop originated from a device registered to this boardroom exactly thirty minutes before this hearing even started."
"That’s impossible, the girl is bluffing and trying to hack our systems right in front of us!" Jess shouted, his voice cracking as he scrambled to grab his tablet, but Jax had already locked him out of the local network.
"It's not a bluff, Jess, because while you were busy gloating about your discovery, Jax was tracking the digital signature of the upload," I told him, stepping around the table to get closer to the board members who were now looking at the screen with genuine confusion and alarm.
"Every file you 'found' has a metadata tag that proves it was created on an Apex terminal and transferred to my laptop via a remote bridge that was opened right here in this room, so unless I can be in two places at once, I think you have a very big problem with your star witness."
Delilah looked at the screen and then at Jess, and for the first time since she walked in, she looked like she was starting to doubt the plan she had helped set in motion.
The security guards hesitated, looking toward Sterling for a new set of orders, but the manager was too busy staring at the hardware ID on the screen which matched the serial number of the tablet sitting right in front of Jess. I stood there with my heart pounding against my ribs, and I looked at the people who had tried to ruin me, seeing the cracks in their foundation finally starting to spread.
"You thought I was just some dumb girl from the bakery who wouldn't know how to look at a timestamp, but you forgot that I’ve spent the last few weeks living with a pack that knows exactly how you people operate," I said, my voice gaining a strength that made Sterling flinch.
"I knew about the sabotage the moment it happened, and we let you bring us here just so we could show the board that the real traitor isn't the human in the kitchen, but the man you’ve been trusting to run your security."
"This is a fabrication, a trick played by the Harts to protect their asset!" Sterling yelled, though he sounded more desperate than convincing now as he turned to the board members.
"Guards, take them both into custody immediately and seize that device!"
The guards lunged forward again, but before they could lay a finger on me, a massive, booming sound echoed through the entire building that made the glass windows in the boardroom rattle in their frames.
It was the unmistakable roar of a high-performance engine screaming at full throttle, followed by the screeching of heavy tires on the pavement far below us. I knew that sound anywhere, and a second later, the internal intercom system exploded with a frantic message from the lobby security about a black armored truck that had just smashed through the front glass doors.
Grayson was here, and he wasn't coming for a meeting or a negotiation.
The boardroom doors were kicked open with such force that one of the hinges snapped, and the room was suddenly filled with the scent of rain and cold fury as the Alpha of the Nightfangs stepped into the light. He looked like he was ready to burn the entire corporate tower to the ground, and as he locked eyes with me, I knew that the "trial" was officially over and the real fight had just begun.