Chapter 5 - The First Lie
“Owen, lock the exits,” he said. “Nobody leaves until we know what was
taken.”
Julian laughed, but the sound came out thin. “You can’t detain your
guests because a child brought you a bedtime story.”
“I’m not detaining guests. I’m protecting company records during a
suspected breach.”
“You don’t even know what’s in Archive Seven.”
“I know what should be there.” Victor turned toward the livestream
camera. “And I know what disappeared twenty years ago.”
He stepped close to his father and lowered his voice. “You are about to
ruin everything you built.”
“No,” Victor said. “I built it on a lie. That’s what ruined it.”
“You think Elias was innocent? He copied the evaluation model. He was
going to sell it to a rival. I protected this family.”
Mara stood. “You told us he confessed.”
“I told you what you needed to hear.”
“You sent lawyers to our apartment while my husband was in the hospital.
You froze our accounts. You made every newspaper in the country print
his name beside the word thief.”
Julian’s eyes flicked to the crowd. “He made his own choices.”
Theo rose from the chair. He was shaking, but his voice held steady. “My
dad chose to tell the truth. You chose to make him pay for it.”
Julian looked down at him. “You have no idea what adults have to do to
keep a company alive.”
“I know what my mom had to do after you took everything.” Theo’s eyes
filled, but he did not look away. “She worked nights. She sold Dad’s
books. She told me he was a good man even when people laughed at his
name. That’s what she had to do.”
Victor reached for the chessboard and rotated it so the white pieces
faced Theo. “One more move,” he said. “Then we go to the archive
together.”
Theo studied the position. The winning line was there, just as his
father had drawn it. He could take the black queen and force a quick
checkmate. Instead, he moved his white rook backward, sacrificing the
advantage he had spent twenty minutes building.
“That’s the move,” he whispered. “The move Elias showed me after I
refused to listen.”
“What does it mean?” Mara asked.
“It means the game was never about winning quickly. It was about forcing
the truth into the open.”
A sharp alarm sounded from the corridor.
Owen’s radio crackled. “Security breach in the lower archive. Someone
has triggered the purge system.”
May you like
Victor turned toward Julian.
His son was already running.
