Chapter 12 - PROJECT JANUS
Marcus caught the edge of the opening with both hands.
I grabbed his wrist.
Pain tore through my fractured arm.
Matthew lunged toward the fallen gun.
Federal agents crashed through the study door.
“Do not move.”
Matthew froze.
Six weapons pointed at his chest.
Detective Ortiz entered behind them.
She kicked the gun away.
Henderson rushed toward me and helped pull Marcus from the opening.
My father appeared in the doorway.
The moment he saw Matthew, every muscle in his body tightened.
Matthew smiled.
“Jonathan.”
My father stepped forward.
Ortiz blocked him.
“He is under arrest.”
“He tried to kill my daughter.”
“And he will answer for it.”
Matthew looked at me.
“This is not over.”
I stood despite the pain.
“Yes.”
“It is.”
Agents forced him to his knees.
They handcuffed his wrists.
As they led him away, he turned toward the opening in the floor.
For the first time, real fear appeared in his eyes.
Whatever lay beneath the study frightened him more than prison.
Ortiz ordered an evidence team into the lower chamber.
The room beneath the floor contained no bodies.
It contained identities.
Thousands of them.
Passports.
Birth certificates.
Medical records.
Bank accounts.
Digital profiles.
Project Janus was far larger than Lauren understood.
Matthew had used NexusCore’s software to create false identities for wealthy clients.
People hiding money.
Executives avoiding sanctions.
Criminals escaping investigations.
Politicians concealing children and property.
Each identity had been built from fragments stolen from real people.
Some were dead.
Some were homeless.
Some were children in the foundation’s education programs.
The charity had given Matthew access to their information.
My name appeared on every approval.
The discovery transformed the investigation.
This was no longer only domestic violence and financial fraud.
Federal agencies sealed NexusCore’s offices across the country.
Trading in the company’s shares stopped.
Board members surrendered phones and laptops.
Three executives attempted to leave the United States before sunrise.
All were detained.
Marcus was transported to the hospital under guard.
He had escaped the panic room by breaking a locking mechanism with a piece of metal from the chair.
Before the ambulance doors closed, he reached for my hand.
“I am sorry.”
I looked at him.
“For helping Matthew?”
“For watching him remove you from the company.”
“Why did you?”
“Because he promoted me.”
Marcus lowered his eyes.
“I told myself you had chosen to leave.”
“And when you learned the truth?”
“I told myself it was too late.”
I understood that excuse.
I had used it myself.
“It is never too late to stop helping the person hurting someone.”
Marcus nodded.
He would still face charges.
Cooperation did not erase what he had done.
But it might prevent Matthew’s clients from using their false identities to escape.
At dawn, my father and I stood outside the Southampton house.
News helicopters circled above the trees.
Agents carried boxes of evidence toward armored vehicles.
“You should be in the hospital,” my father said.
“So should you.”
“I was not beaten twenty times.”
“No.”
I looked toward the house.
“You only crawled through a burning tunnel.”
He almost smiled.
Then his expression grew serious.
“The company may not survive this.”
“NexusCore does not deserve to survive as it is.”
“Thousands of innocent employees depend on it.”
“I know.”
“What will you do?”
The question surprised me.
He was not telling me what should happen.
He was asking.
I looked toward the rising sun.
“We separate the legitimate technology from Matthew’s crimes.”
“And the trust?”
“I revoke the current license.”
“That will shut down every NexusCore product.”
“Temporarily.”
“Clients may leave.”
“Then we earn them back.”
My father studied me.
“You sound like a chief executive.”
“I was one before anyone gave me the title.”
Henderson approached carrying a sealed evidence bag.
Inside was Matthew’s wedding ring.
“He removed it before entering the house.”
I stared at the ring I had placed on his finger seven years earlier.
Something had been carved into the inner surface.
Henderson angled it toward the light.
Two words appeared.
PROPERTY OF L.
Lauren’s initial.
May you like
But beneath those words was a date.
The date was six months before Matthew and I were married.
