Chapter 4: The Safehouse
Chapter 4: The Safehouse
Julian picked them up three hours later in a battered work van, driving them across the border back into the United States, hiding them in the hidden compartments of his smuggling vehicle. He brought them to a windowless, subterranean server farm he operated out of a forgotten industrial park in Nevada. It was warm, secure, and fully stocked with food and medical supplies for Nico.
While Nico slept peacefully, his fever finally breaking, Mariana sat beside Julian in front of a bank of glowing monitors. "They locked down your personal accounts," Julian said, his fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard. "Rodrigo moved fast. Your assets, your trust fund, everything is frozen pending the 'investigation' into your suicide."
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"Let him have the money," Mariana said, her eyes cold and focused. "I need the footage from the yacht’s aft deck. Time stamp: 11:45 PM, two nights ago."
Julian initiated the breach. The firewall was robust, designed by the very firm Mariana had hired, but Julian had the backdoor keys she had secretly mandated. Bypassing the two-factor authentication required rerouting a localized ping to mimic her destroyed device, a process that took hours of agonizing waiting. Finally, the progress bar hit one hundred percent. A grid of security camera feeds populated the screen. Mariana clicked on 'Camera 4 - Portside Stern'.
