Chapter 22 - The Silver Key
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Downstairs, the living room felt like a crime scene. I locked the front door again, pulled the heavy velvet curtains shut, and sat at my desk with an old, air-gapped laptop that had never been connected to the internet.
My hands trembled as I picked up the gold-plated mechanical pocket watch from the velvet box. With a small knife, I pried open the back casing.
Engraved inside the gold metal was a single line of script: To Rafael—The debt is paid in blood. 11:42 PM.
A tear slipped down my cheek, cold and bitter. The date stamped beside the time was the exact night my mother passed away from what I had been told was a sudden heart attack.
"Oh God, Dad... what did you do?" I whispered to the empty room.
I grabbed the silver flash drive, inserted it into the USB port of the laptop, and waited as the directory loaded. A single encrypted folder appeared on the screen, labeled simply: BANK ACCOUNT 409.
I typed in the master override protocol I used for the foundation's high-level security files. The folder popped open, revealing dozens of scanned PDF documents dating back three decades.
Document after document bore the official seal of the Swiss Federal Banking Authority. Millions of dollars had flowed from a blind trust in Zurich directly into my father's startup accounts for Montes Global Group.
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And at the bottom of the master land deed for my Madrid shelter was a signature I knew better than my own.
It was my father's signature, alongside a second signature signed in dark red ink: Valentin Vance.
