Chapter 10 - Natasha's Desperate Blackmail and the Unraveling Web
While Harrison was being thrown out onto the pavement outside Blake Tower, Natasha was pacing frantically inside a cheap motel room on the outskirts of the city.
Every luxury bank account in her name was frozen. Her Mercedes G-Wagon had been repossessed by federal marshals two hours ago. Her high-society friends had blocked her number, and her reputation was completely obliterated across social media and mainstream news broadcasts.
Her phone rang. It was an encrypted international number.
Natasha grabbed the burner phone, her hands shaking violently. “Hello? Viktor?”
“Your boyfriend Harrison has failed us,” Viktor Voronin’s cold, menacing voice came through the speaker. “The federal government has seized our container ships at the harbor. We have lost $40 million in contraband.”
“Viktor, listen to me!” Natasha screamed into the phone. “I have Arthur Blake’s private offshore encryption keys! I stole them from Arthur’s safe three years ago before he died! There is $20 million in an untraceable Swiss vault in Zurich! I can give you the access codes right now, but you have to get me out of the country on a private jet tonight!”
“Where are the keys?” Viktor demanded.
“I have the backup flash drive hidden inside my locker at the downtown athletic club,” Natasha lied, trying to buy herself time. “Meet me at the shipping pier at 9:00 p.m. Bring the jet flight manifest, and I will hand you the encryption drive.”
“If you are lying to me, Natasha, you will end up at the bottom of the Atlantic harbor,” Viktor growled and hung up.
Natasha threw the phone onto the cheap bed, sobbing in rage and terror.
She didn't have the encryption keys. Simone had the real ledger.
Natasha picked up her phone and dialed Simone’s personal number.
Simone answered on the second ring. “Natasha.”
“Simone... please,” Natasha wept, switching instantly from arrogance to desperate, sniveling manipulation. “You have to help me! The syndicate is going to kill me! Harrison forced me to do all of this! He threatened me! He said if I didn't help him launder the money, he would destroy my family! You know me, Simone! We were best friends for eight years! You can’t let them murder me!”
Simone listened to Natasha’s fabricated lies with pure, icy detachment.
“You’re still lying, Natasha,” Simone said quietly. “I found the photograph in Arthur Blake’s safe.”
A dead, suffocating silence fell over the line. Natasha stopped weeping instantly.
“You... you found the photo?” Natasha whispered, her voice dropping into a sinister, unrecognizable tone.
“Arthur Blake, your father, and you in Switzerland twenty-five years ago,” Simone said. “You weren't Harrison’s victim. You were sent here to infiltrate my marriage and help the syndicate take over Blake Enterprises from within. You used our friendship as a weapon.”
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Natasha’s sinister laugh echoed through the receiver, devoid of all humanity. “You think you’re so smart, Simone? If I’m going down, I’m taking you and that bastard child with me. Meet me at the 9th Street shipping pier at 8:30 p.m. with Arthur’s black ledger. If you don't show up alone, Harrison’s men will burn your sister Tanya’s house to the ground with her inside.”
“I’ll be there,” Simone said and ended the call.
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