Chapter 17 - The ChoiceThe building's security system had been compromised.
Doors locked.
Elevators stopped.
Emergency alarms screamed.
Victor stepped toward me.
"You see?"
He whispered.
"Control."
But I had learned something.
Control wasn't power.
People were power.
I looked at the security cameras.
Mr. Henderson was coordinating the hotel employees.
Eleanor was working with federal investigators.
The Solmere staff had refused to abandon the building.
For the first time, the empire wasn't being protected by one person.
It was protecting itself.
I activated the emergency protocol my mother had designed decades earlier.
Every Solmere property worldwide went into autonomous lockdown.
Every corporate account connected to Vanguard was frozen.
Every piece of evidence was released simultaneously to federal investigators.
Victor's network collapsed in minutes.
His phone began ringing.
One call.
Then another.
Then another.
His face changed.
The empire he had spent decades building was disappearing.
"You think you've won?"
I looked at him.
"No."
May you like
I stepped closer.
"I know."
