Chapter 7 - THE FALL OF A BILLIONAIRE
My father did not resist.
Before the agents led him away, he looked at me.
“Three moves ahead, Amelia.”
That was all he said.
Within an hour, Sterling Global’s stock plunged. News vans surrounded our building. Commentators called me the spoiled secret daughter of a corrupt billionaire.
Veronica posted a new video.
“Maybe garbage was exactly what she deserved.”
It received two million views.
I wanted to throw my phone through the window.
Instead, I studied the arrest affidavit.
The government claimed my father had approved payments to Red Harbor. His electronic signature appeared on twelve transfers.
“He didn’t sign these,” I said.
Dana examined them. “How can you know?”
“My father never signs Nathan J. Sterling. He hates his middle name. He signs N. James Sterling on formal documents.”
Someone had copied the wrong version from a public filing.
Arthur Bell had access to every corporate system. He also had the respectability to stand behind everyone else while they took the blame.
We needed more than forged signatures.
Lily and Evan found a reference in my mother’s files to Project Lantern, stored on Westbridge’s offline archive. The archive was located beneath the old library.
Campus security had sealed the university, but students were still allowed into dorms.
For once, being treated like an unimportant scholarship student helped me.
I returned wearing a hooded sweatshirt and entered through a kitchen delivery door. Lily met me inside.
“You sure about this?” she whispered.
“No.”
“Good. I’d be worried if you were.”
We crossed the library basement and found a steel door hidden behind movable shelves.
Evan opened the electronic lock remotely.
Inside were paper ledgers dating back twenty years. Red Harbor had taken money from hundreds of students, including applicants who were told their scholarships had disappeared.
Then I found a recent payment.
Five hundred thousand dollars to Veronica Hale.
The memo read: Student outreach and digital containment.
Her harassment hadn’t been personal revenge alone.
She had been paid to discredit me.
A door slammed upstairs.
Chief Nolan’s voice echoed through the basement.
“Amelia, come out. We have Lily’s brother.”
Lily reached for my hand.
Footsteps moved down the stairs.
I photographed the ledger pages and pushed the original book into her backpack.
“Take the tunnel marked B.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll give them what they came for.”
I stepped into the hallway with empty hands.
Nolan raised his weapon.
Behind him, Veronica was smiling.
May you like
“Livestream this,” I told her. “You’re going to want a record of what happens next.”
Then the library doors locked behind them.
