Chapter 10 - The Midnight Sabotage Attempt
Desperate, cornered, and facing imminent federal arrest, Julian and Evelyn made one final, catastrophic mistake.
At 11:30 PM on Tuesday night, Julian used his old maintenance emergency key to slip through the basement loading dock of the Vance & Sterling skyscraper.
His goal was simple: break into the 38th-floor executive archive, physically steal the encrypted hard drives containing the original architectural CAD models, and destroy the server backups to cripple the Riverfront Tower project before the morning press conference.
Evelyn waited in an idling rental sedan in the alley behind the building.
Julian rode the freight elevator up to the 38th floor. He pulled on black leather gloves, bypassed the darkened reception lobby, and slipped into the central server vault using an override code he had memorized months ago.
He located the master storage drive, pulled the release lever, and yanked the drive from the server rack.
Suddenly, the overhead fluorescent lights buzzed to life with blinding daylight brilliance.
Julian froze.
Standing at the entrance of the server vault were six armed officers from the Chicago Police Department’s Major Economic Crimes Division, weapons drawn, flanked by Chief Deputy Marcus Hayes and Assistant US Attorney Catherine Ross.
I stepped out from behind the tactical team, wearing a tailored black coat, looking at my husband with complete, unshakeable calm.
“Looking for your exit strategy, Julian?” I asked quietly.
Julian panicked, clutching the hard drive to his chest, backing against the server racks. “Clara! Tell them to back off! I built this project with you! Half of this intellectual property belongs to me under marital property law!”
“Marital property does not cover industrial espionage, burglary, and grand larceny, Julian,” Catherine Ross stated, holding up an active federal arrest warrant. “Drop the hard drive and put your hands behind your head.”
Outside in the alley, the screech of police sirens echoed through the night as tactical cruisers boxed in Evelyn’s rental sedan, dragging her screaming from the driver’s seat.
Julian’s trembling fingers opened, letting the heavy metal drive clatter onto the floor.
Officers tackled him against the server console, clicking steel handcuffs around his wrists with brutal efficiency.
As they dragged Julian past me in the hallway, his face bruised, his silk tie ripped, he looked into my eyes with tears of desperate, pathetic remorse.
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“Clara... please,” Julian sobbed. “Think of Leo! What will our son think if his father is in prison?”
“Our son will know that his father was a thief who tried to destroy his family for greed,” I replied coldly. “And that his mother was strong enough to protect him.”
