Daniel’s face drained of color, but his shock quickly warped into a cornered, feral sneer. He reached inside his tailored jacket and pulled a suppressed silver pistol, aiming it directly at my chest.
Guests screamed, scattering across the polished marble.
“Shoot the screens!” Daniel barked at the corporate security team. “Arrest her!”
None of the guards moved.
The Chief of Security stepped forward, calmly drew his weapon, and aimed it—right at Daniel’s head.
“My badge doesn’t just open doors, Daniel,” I said, my voice echoing through the dead-silent lobby. “It overrides the payroll system. As of three minutes ago, their salaries tripled. They work for me.”
Vanessa whimpered, trying to crawl behind the reception desk, but Daniel grabbed her arm, jerking her up as a human shield.
“It doesn’t matter!” Daniel spat, his gun hand trembling. “I wired the Somor Trust offshore this morning! I have the billions. I can buy an army, Elena!”
I wiped a streak of blood from my jaw and smiled.
“Did you ever wonder why Mom kept the ‘Alpha Fund’ isolated from the main trust?” I asked softly.
Daniel froze.
“You didn’t steal our family’s money, Daniel. You drained a honeypot account we set up to track a cartel’s money-laundering network. You just wired two billion dollars of syndicate blood money into a private account with your name on it.”
His pistol wavered. The arrogance completely vanished from his eyes.
“And the best part?” I tapped my gold badge. The lobby screens shifted from the video to a live dark-web ledger. “I just broadcasted your bank routing numbers and your exact GPS location to their fixers. The police are five minutes away. But the cartel is already in the parking lot.”
Daniel dropped the gun, his knees hitting the marble floor in pure terror.
I looked at the woman in white, who was now trembling violently.
“Vanessa,” I said, stepping over the weapon. “Get this nobody out of my resort.”