Chapter 7 - The Knock at Midnight
We managed to get through a quiet dinner of leftover grilled cheese and sliced apples. I tried to act normal, putting on a brave face for Lily, but inside, my mind was racing like a high-speed locomotive.
Graham Ellison was a ruthless corporate litigator. Even if his wedding had exploded into ash, a man like that didn't just walk away with his tail between his legs. He would retaliate. He would try to spin the narrative, bury the audio file, or find a way to legally harass anyone who held copies of the evidence.
Fortunately, Lily hadn't just relied on a single flash drive.
Before we went to bed at 10:00 p.m., Lily handed me a small, encrypted micro-SD card.
“I backed it up to three different places, Mommy,” she whispered sleepily from beneath her floral comforter. “Just in case the bad man tried to take it away.”
I kissed her forehead, smiling despite the tension in my chest. “You’re too smart for your own good, kiddo.”
Around midnight, a sharp, urgent rapping echoed against our front door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I froze in the hallway. I checked the peephole. It wasn't my father.
Standing on our porch in the dim amber light of the hallway fixture was a tall, impeccably dressed man in a charcoal suit. He wasn't yelling, and he didn't look angry. He looked exhausted, calculating, and desperate.
It was Harrison Cole—senior general counsel for Northbridge Capital, the man who had helped me dismantle my family’s corporate empire months earlier.
I unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open six inches, keeping the security chain latched.
“Mr. Cole,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “It’s past midnight. Unless the global banking sector is collapsing, you’re in the wrong zip code.”
Harrison offered a tired, wry smile. He held up his hands to show they were empty.
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“Good evening, Claire,” he said softly. “I’m not here on behalf of Northbridge. I’m here because my phone has been ringing off the hook for the past three hours, and my primary source for corporate intelligence happens to be the mother of a remarkably observant eight-year-old girl.”
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