Chapter 5 - The Daughter’s Secret
The lunge was sloppy, fueled by adrenaline and a lifetime of arrogance. Beatrice didn’t even need to shift her feet. As Lucas closed the distance, she sidestepped with surgical precision, the butt of her Glock meeting his temple with a sickening thud. He collapsed into the mud, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Beatrice didn't celebrate. She immediately knelt, not to check on Lucas, but to check his pockets. She needed to know what he was so afraid of—and why he had truly killed her daughter, Sarah.
She pulled a slim, encrypted drive from his inner breast pocket. Then, she checked his phone. It was locked, but she had a brute-force bypass tool—a relic from her days at the Agency—stashed in her tactical vest. Within moments, she was scrolling through encrypted messages.
Her breath hitched. Sarah wasn't just a victim. Sarah had been a deep-cover operative for the State Department, embedded in the D.A.’s office for three years. The "vacation" Sarah had supposedly taken was a cover for an extraction that had gone wrong. The messages were a chronicle of Lucas’s corruption: a massive, multi-national money-laundering operation involving the local police, state officials, and a powerful syndicate known as "The Vipers."
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Sarah had discovered that the "rug" wasn't just a burial ground; it was where Lucas hid the ledger for every bribe, every judge he owned, and every life he had ruined.
Beatrice felt a cold, sharp anger, but she pushed it down. Sentiment is for the weak, she told herself. Strategy is for the victor. She dragged Lucas toward the Sheriff’s patrol car, threw him in the back, and activated the dashcam, recording his unconscious face as visual proof of his capture.
