Chapter 5 - The Snake in the Garden
Julian dragged the unconscious guard into the hallway, staring down at the silver crest pinned to the man’s tactical vest—the Thorne family emblem. A heavy, suffocating silence blanketed the floor.
Lois stepped through the wreckage, holding Julian’s discarded coat tight around her frame, her bare white sneakers stained with specks of blood and shattered glass. ""Your family... Julian, your mother is protecting him.""
""My mother is protecting the fortune,"" Julian corrected, his voice dangerously low. ""She doesn't care about Burke. She cares about what happens to the Thorne dynasty if the public discovers our hospital is the slaughterhouse.""
He dragged Lois toward the private service stairwell, descending into the belly of the building where his armored Maybach waited in the underground executive garage. As they stepped into the vehicle, Julian plugged the flash drive into his encrypted onboard terminal.
The screen blinked alive, lines of code executing rapidly before dumping thousands of medical manifests onto the monitor. But as Julian scrolled through the financial ledgers, his breath hitched. The payments were not routed to Eleanor Thorne or Christian Burke.
The primary recipient account was registered under an offshore trust titled Vance Global Enterprises.
Lois stared at the screen, her lips parting in horror. ""That's... that's my father’s name. But my father died ten years ago in an industrial fire.""
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""Then your father isn't dead,"" Julian said, shifting the car into gear as the engine roared to life. ""Or someone has been using your bloodline to launder fifty million dollars a month.""
Behind them, the garage gate slammed shut automatically, trapping them in the concrete labyrinth as toxic smoke began pouring from the ventilation grates.
