I Saved My Boss's Mute Daughter From His Cruel Fiancée Now I'm Being Framed

Grant stepped out of the elevator, keeping me slightly behind him. He held up the fake USB drive.

"I have it, Arthur," Grant called out, his voice echoing off the marble. "But I want proof of life. I want to hear Emma's mother. Now."

"You're not in a position to negotiate," Arthur sneered.

"I'm in the only position," Grant shot back, stopping twenty feet from the armed men. "You want your insurance policy back so you don't spend the rest of your pathetic life in a federal penitentiary. If I don't hear her voice right now, I snap this drive in half and text the cloud backup to the New York Times."

Silence hung heavy over the line. Arthur was calculating.

"Fine," Arthur finally spat.

A moment later, a weak, confused voice came through the speaker. "Emma? Honey? There are some very rude men in my room..."

"Mom!" I cried out, tears instantly flooding my eyes. "Mom, don't move. Just stay calm, okay? Everything is going to be fine."

"That's enough," Arthur interrupted. "Hand it over, Grant."

Grant didn't move. He looked down at his watch. Three minutes had passed. We needed to buy five more.

"You know, Arthur," Grant said, pacing slowly to the left, drawing the men's attention away from the glass doors behind them. "I have to admit, it was a brilliant plan. You used Renata’s greed to do your dirty work. She thought she was marrying into an empire, but you were always going to throw her under the bus, weren't you?"

"She was a blunt instrument," Arthur said coldly. "And you were a blind fool. You handed me the keys to the kingdom the day you let Sarah die. Now, give them the drive."

The head thug took a step forward, his hand resting menacingly on his pistol.

"Grant," I whispered, my chest tightening.

Grant checked his watch again. Two minutes.

"I'll give you the drive," Grant said, his voice rising, bouncing off the glass walls. "But first, I think the Board of Directors needs to know exactly what their Vice Chairman has been up to."

Grant reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He didn't text the police. He accessed the building's emergency PA system—a system only the CEO could override.

He tapped a single button.

Suddenly, the audio file we had stolen upstairs blasted through every single speaker in the eighty-story skyscraper, echoing into the lobby at a deafening volume.

"You guarantee the brakes fail on the mountain?" Arthur's voice boomed from the ceiling.