Chapter 2 - THE CLOUD ARCHIVES REVEAL THE PLOT
Leaving Wendy resting peacefully under the care of the night nurses, I drove straight back to our freezing, silent apartment. The cold air hit my face like physical blows, reminding me of the sheer cruelty my family had inflicted upon my wife and newborn child. I unlocked the front door and walked directly into the master study, flipping open my encrypted laptop.
The security application loaded instantly, demanding my biometric authentication before granting access to the historical archives. I bypassed the live feeds and clicked straight into the cloud storage directory, filtering by date and time. The files were neatly categorized, capturing every second of activity inside our home since the day I boarded my flight to Singapore.
I skipped forward to the third week of my absence, inputting the specific timestamp when Wendy had first called me crying about the lack of groceries. The screen flickered to life, projecting high-definition footage onto my monitor with crystal-clear audio.
My mother, Jessi, stood in the center of our living room holding a cup of herbal tea while Stephanie paced nervously near the front door. The audio picked up their conversation with startling clarity, stripping away any lingering doubt I might have had.
“Did she actually buy the story about Luca’s deal collapsing?” Stephanie asked, her voice dripping with annoyance as she checked her manicure.
Jessi scoffed, waving a hand dismissively in the air. “Of course she did. The girl is exhausted, emotional, and completely isolated. She doesn’t know the first thing about international corporate finance. We just needed her out of the way so we could access the portal.”
“Are you sure thirty-eight grand will cover the Miami resort and the first-class flights?” Stephanie pressed, her eyes wide with greedy anticipation.
“It covers more than enough for two weeks at the Grand Horizon, plus shopping,” Jessi replied smugly. “And once Luca finally comes back, we’ll just spin a new yarn about emergency medical bills or unexpected plumbing repairs in the building. He never checks his statements closely when he’s stressed about work.”
I watched the screen as my mother walked over to our dining table, pulled out my laptop, and spent twenty minutes transferring every single dollar from the household account into their personal laundering accounts. They laughed together as the confirmation notifications popped up on the screen, treating human lives like collateral damage for a beach vacation.
I pressed the export button, downloading the unedited video files, audio transcripts, and transaction IP logs directly onto a secure encrypted flash drive. I slipped the drive into my pocket, standing up slowly in the empty room. They had meticulously planned every step of their theft, completely unaware that every malicious word and calculated keystroke was permanently etched into the cloud.
My phone buzzed against my leg, breaking the heavy silence of the apartment. It was a text message from an unknown number on WhatsApp, accompanied by a picture of a sun-drenched beach. I unlocked the screen and looked down at the message from my sister.
Hey Luca, hope the Singapore trip is going swimmingly! Mom and I decided to take a much-needed spa weekend getaway to clear our heads. Make sure you bring home some fancy souvenirs when you finally crawl back!
May you like
I stared at the screen, my thumbs hovering over the keyboard for a long moment before I typed back a short, neutral reply. Working hard, guys. Enjoy the sun.
Let them soak up all the artificial sunshine they wanted while they still had the freedom to do so. I wasn’t going to ruin their little vacation with an angry phone call or a premature threat. True revenge required patience, absolute precision, and a total lack of mercy.
