Chapter 25 - Rebecca’s Choice
Rebecca heard the recording in custody.
Her attorney advised her not to speak.
She ignored him.
“I can get Thomas into the boardroom.”
Federal investigators exchanged glances.
“How?” an agent asked.
“Because he still thinks I kept one thing from Daniel.”
“What?”
“The original Bellweather access cipher.”
Her attorney objected.
Rebecca continued anyway.
“Thomas gave it to me the week before the wedding. He said if everything failed, I was supposed to destroy it.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Where is it?”
Rebecca looked into the camera used for the secure call.
“With me.”
Daniel watched from Arden Tower.
Emily stood beside him.
Rebecca looked exhausted.
Nothing remained of the bride who had walked through the Grand Marlowe in white lace.
Daniel felt no satisfaction seeing her broken.
Only distance.
Rebecca looked at Emily.
“I’m sorry.”
Emily’s expression did not change.
“You already said that.”
“I know.”
“Sorry doesn’t erase what you did.”
“I know.”
“You hit me. You tried to take me away. My son saw it.”
Rebecca lowered her eyes.
“I know.”
Emily waited for excuses.
None came.
Finally Rebecca said, “I’m not asking you to forgive me.”
That mattered.
Emily’s anger remained.
But she listened.
Rebecca explained that Thomas had recruited her years earlier.
Catherine discovered her.
Instead of exposing Rebecca immediately, Catherine offered her a way out.
Rebecca helped Catherine for several months.
Then Catherine died.
Rebecca became terrified and disappeared from Bellweather.
Years later, Thomas found her again.
He ordered her to approach Daniel.
“Why agree?” Daniel asked.
“Fear at first.”
“And later?”
Rebecca looked directly at him.
“Greed.”
No excuses.
“I convinced myself I deserved the money. Then I convinced myself I loved you enough that the reason I met you didn’t matter.”
Daniel said nothing.
Rebecca continued.
“Emily forced me to look at what I had become.”
Emily’s voice was cold.
“So you hit me.”
“Yes.”
Rebecca’s eyes filled.
“And that is mine. Not Thomas’s. Mine.”
For the first time, Emily believed something she said.
The federal agent asked about the cipher.
Rebecca provided twelve characters.
Lucas entered them into Jonathan’s archive.
A hidden directory opened.
Inside were account names.
Judges.
Lawyers.
Private investigators.
Executives.
More than three hundred Bellweather operations.
Enough to destroy the network.
Then another file appeared.
STEWARD AUTHORIZATION.
It required Thomas’s live biometric confirmation to unlock.
Rebecca looked at Daniel.
“He’ll know what that file contains.”
“What?”
“Every instruction he ever personally authorized.”
Daniel understood the trap.
Thomas would come to delete it.
Emily sent a message through Bellweather’s old channel.
THE STEWARD FILE IS OPEN.
LOCATION: ARDEN BOARDROOM.
Thirty seconds later, Marcus’s camera found Thomas in the stairwell.
May you like
He changed direction.
He was coming.
