Chapter 15 - Eleven Timers
The scheduled emails were hidden across multiple services.
Some used anonymous accounts.
Others passed through encrypted forwarding systems.
Gregory had created them with help from Calvin.
Each message contained documents selected to damage a specific client relationship.
Negotiation memos.
Internal risk assessments.
Executive succession plans.
None were illegal for us to possess.
All were devastating if released.
Agent Bell assembled a technical team.
Mercer Strategic’s new security director joined them.
For twenty hours, nobody left the operations room.
I stayed too.
At 4:12 in the morning, Dana placed coffee beside me.
“You should sleep.”
“No.”
“You have not slept properly in two months.”
“I’ll sleep after the timers are gone.”
“You cannot personally disable them.”
“No.”
“But I can be here.”
At 6:40, Bell announced they had neutralized seven.
Four remained.
At 7:15, nine were gone.
Two remained.
The next release was scheduled for 8:00.
At 7:42, one remained.
At 7:51, they found the routing server.
At 7:57, the cancellation attempt failed.
Nobody spoke.
Bell tried again.
7:58.
Failed.
The final email targeted a pharmaceutical client involved in a confidential merger.
If released, it could affect public markets.
This was bigger than losing a contract.
At 7:59, Bell’s team isolated the destination account.
Ten seconds before eight, the system froze.
The message never left.
Nobody cheered immediately.
Everyone stared at the monitor.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Thirty.
Bell finally exhaled.
“We got it.”
The room erupted.
People hugged.
Someone laughed.
Dana sat down as if her knees had stopped working.
I simply closed my eyes.
For the first time since the honeymoon, something threatening my company had been stopped before it caused damage.
Then Bell said, “There are three other scheduled jobs.”
My eyes opened.
“What?”
“They aren’t emails.”
“What are they?”
He turned the monitor.
One was a timed data deletion request.
One was a payment instruction.
And one was an automated message addressed to me.
Bell asked, “Do you want to open it?”
I stared at the screen.
The message was scheduled for our one-month wedding anniversary.
A day that would never exist as Gregory imagined it.
“Open it.”
The video began.
Gregory appeared on the screen wearing the same shirt he had worn the evening before our wedding.
He looked happy.
Relaxed.
Normal.
“Hey, Ash.”
My stomach turned.
“If you’re watching this, things probably didn’t go exactly the way we planned.”
We.
Not I.
He continued.
“I’m guessing you refused to sign.”
“And I’m guessing you’re angry.”
I folded my arms.
Gregory on the screen smiled.
“But if you’ve reached this message, I need you to understand something.”
“My father always wins.”
“He’s been doing this longer than either of us has been alive.”
“You can fight him.”
“You can embarrass me.”
“You can call lawyers.”
“But eventually you’ll understand that resisting costs more than cooperating.”
The old Gregory leaned toward the camera.
“Come home.”
“We can still fix this.”
The video ended.
Nobody in the room moved.
Dana looked furious.
Bell looked disgusted.
I felt something else.
Freedom.
Because the man on that video still believed I would eventually become exhausted enough to return.
He believed pressure was infinite.
He believed my resistance was temporary.
He believed the ending belonged to him.
I looked at Agent Bell.
“Can prosecutors use that?”
His expression changed.
“Oh, yes.”
“Good.”
I stood.
“Then save three copies.”
Dana smiled for the first time all morning.
I walked to the window.
Sunrise covered Miami in gold.
Two months earlier, I had boarded a cruise believing my life was beginning.
I had been wrong.
May you like
My old life had been ending.
This was the beginning.
