Chapter 4 - The Art of Corporate Warfare
By 4:00 a.m., Nathan was inside his private study, the door locked. He didn't sleep. He called his chief of security, a former elite intelligence officer named Marcus, and his top corporate attorney, Sophia Vance.
"I need every server, every hidden cloud backup, and every deleted file from Victoria’s personal devices duplicated by sunrise," Nathan ordered Marcus. "She said she intercepted the security footage. That means the data exists. Find it."
By 7:00 a.m., Victoria had finally emerged from the basement, having spent the night trying to figure out a way to spin the narrative. She knocked on Nathan’s study door, dressed flawlessly in a cream-colored designer suit, looking every bit the high-society matriarch.
"Nathan, we need to handle this like adults," she said as she entered, her voice smooth, attempting to appeal to his business logic. "A scandal like this will destroy the Harrington stock. The board will panic. The foundation will lose its donors. We can quietly send the children to a premium boarding school in Switzerland. They’ll get the best care, and we can maintain appearances."
Nathan didn't look up from his laptop. "A boarding school."
"Yes," Victoria said, gaining confidence, thinking she was winning him over. "It’s the most logical solution. I admit, I lost my temper. The pressure of managing the Harrington name is immense. But we are a team, Nathan. We built this image together."
Nathan finally raised his eyes. He turned his laptop screen toward her.
On the screen was a live dashboard showing a massive, systematic dump of data. Marcus had successfully bypassed Victoria’s encrypted drives. Millions of gigabytes of deleted security footage showing her emotional abuse, her locked-door confinements, and her financial ledgers were being compiled into a single, undeniable file.
But that wasn't all.
"You think I care about the Harrington stock, Victoria?" Nathan said softly. "Look closer at the financial tab."
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Victoria gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. The ledgers didn't just show abuse; they showed that for the past three years, Victoria had been funneling tens of millions of dollars from the Harrington Charitable Foundation into offshore shell companies in the Cayman Islands to fund her own secret real estate portfolio.
"You didn't just abuse my children," Nathan said, standing up, towering over her. "You stole from the poorest people in the world under my name. You aren't just facing a divorce, Victoria. You are facing federal prison."
