Chapter 47 - The Matriarch’s Last Will
Clara didn't flinch, didn't retreat, and didn't beg for the mercy she knew her father had never possessed.
Instead, she reached into her inner coat pocket and withdrew a small, ornate silver thumb drive on a severed gold chain.
"Do you recognize this, Father?" Clara said, holding the metallic object high beneath the blue terminal lights.
Arthur stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes widening in sudden, uncharacteristic terror as he recognized the heirloom.
"Where did you get that?" Arthur hissed, the silver revolver trembling slightly in his grip for the very first time.
"Mother gave it to me before she died in the vault," Clara lied smoothly, her voice ringing with absolute, icy conviction.
"She didn't give you the master override," Arthur spat, though sweat was now beading along his receding hairline. "She couldn't have."
"She kept it hidden inside her prosthetic heart valve for twenty-five years," Clara whispered, stepping closer to the terminal.
"Ninety-five percent," the computer announced, the digital progress bar shifting from pulsing amber to a burning red.
"Step away from the console, Arthur," Clara said, her thumb hovering over the thumb drive’s retraction switch. "Or I corrupt the partition."
"If you corrupt the partition, the money is vaporized!" Arthur roared, completely losing his composure. "Forty billion dollars!"
"I don't care about the money!" Clara screamed back, her maternal fury shaking the very foundation of the mountaintop room.
"I care about my daughter living in a world where you don't exist!" she added, slamming the thumb drive into the terminal port.
The computer screen flashed violently, the scrolling green lines of financial routing codes instantly turning into chaotic red static.
"Error," the computerized voice chimed calmly. "Decryption conflict detected. Sovereign ledger compromised."
Arthur let out a feral roar of primal rage, abandoning all caution and lunging straight for Clara’s throat.
I drove my body forward from the floor, tackling Arthur around the knees with everything left in my bleeding frame.
We crashed into the main server pedestal, sending computer components, cables, and glass monitors smashing onto the floor.
Arthur slammed the heavy butt of the silver revolver against my injured shoulder, white-hot agony blinding my vision.
I clamped my hands onto his throat, feeling the brittle cartilage of his windpipe beneath my bloody fingers.
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"You... insignificant... insect!" Arthur choked out, gouging his thumbs toward my eyes with psychotic ferocity.
From across the room, the sharp, deafening blast of a heavy shotgun tore through the chaos of the blizzard.
