Chapter 2 - The Hidden Drive
I rushed back to my empty house, locking the deadbolt behind me.
The silence was deafening, but my heart was pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
I ran straight to Tyler’s bedroom.
It looked exactly as he had left it. Posters of vintage sports cars on the wall, a neatly made bed, and his massive, custom-built computer tower sitting on the desk.
Harrison had always mocked Tyler’s obsession with coding. He called it a "nerd's distraction" and demanded Tyler focus on business and law.
I, on the other hand, had bought him every programming book he ever asked for.
I sat at his desk and turned the computer on.
A password prompt appeared. Not the usual one. This was a black terminal screen with green text.
Enter passphrase.
I tried his birthday. Nothing.
I tried his favorite superhero. Nothing.
Then, I remembered the message. Don't trust anyone Dad knows.
What was the one thing Tyler and I shared that Harrison despised?
I typed: StarryNight1889. It was the painting we had spent three hours admiring at the MoMA on a secret trip to New York, a trip Harrison said was a waste of time.
Access Granted.
The screen unlocked, revealing a single folder on the desktop.
It was named: Insurance Policy.
My hands shook as I clicked it.
Inside was a video file and dozens of scanned documents, ledgers, and offshore account numbers.
I clicked the video.
Tyler’s face appeared on the screen, lit only by the glow of his monitor. He looked tired. He looked terrified.
“Hey, Mom,” his digital voice echoed in the quiet room.
“If you’re watching this, it means I’m on a plane with Dad, and you found the card.”
He took a deep breath, looking nervously over his shoulder.
“Dad’s company isn’t just buying up real estate, Mom. He’s washing money. A lot of it. For people you never, ever want to meet.”
My blood ran cold.
“I hacked his private server two months ago just to see if I could,” Tyler continued. “I found out he’s heavily in debt to a syndicate in Eastern Europe.”
Tyler leaned closer to the camera, his eyes wide.
“But that’s not the worst part, Mom. He was setting you up.”
I stopped breathing.
“He opened three shell companies in your name before the divorce was finalized. He was going to let the FBI trace the dirty money back to you.”
Tears streamed down my face. Harrison, the man I had loved, was going to send me to federal prison to save his own skin.
“I couldn’t let that happen,” Tyler said, his voice hardening with a resolve no thirteen-year-old should possess.
“I chose him in court so he would take me to Geneva. I need physical access to his Swiss banking fob to wipe the servers and transfer the evidence.”
He swallowed hard.
“The money on that card is clean. It’s my trust fund. I unlocked it and moved it. Take it. Hire protection. Disappear until I finish this.”
The video ended.
Before I could even process the magnitude of my son's sacrifice, I heard a sound that made my heart stop.
May you like
The crunch of tires on gravel.
A black SUV with tinted windows had just pulled into my driveway.
