Chapter 17 - THE FIFTY-MILLION-DOLLAR RACE
Halcyon Global denied knowing Lighthouse had been stolen.
Its executives claimed my father provided patent documents, university verification, and sworn statements identifying Ethan as the inventor.
Every document was false.
But fifty million dollars had already left the country.
Agent Grant’s financial team traced the payment through three offshore accounts.
The final destination was hidden behind a trust in the Cayman Islands.
The trust beneficiary was not my father.
It was Ethan.
He stared at the transfer report inside the federal interview room.
“I did not know about this account.”
“You expect me to believe that?” Agent Grant asked.
“Dad controlled everything.”
“The trust carries your electronic signature.”
“He had access to it.”
“Northbridge carried your signature too.”
Ethan looked through the glass wall toward me.
“Emily knows how he operated.”
I entered the room.
“I know how both of you operated.”
“I did not start the fire.”
“You stole my laptop.”
“Dad ordered me to.”
“You entered my apartment.”
“I was trying to find the ledger before he did.”
“You left cameras inside my bedroom.”
His face tightened.
“That was him.”
“You still helped.”
He leaned forward.
“I can find the money.”
Agent Grant crossed her arms.
“How?”
“The offshore trust requires a rotating security code.”
“Where is the device?”
“Dad kept it inside the company’s executive vault.”
“The headquarters server room burned.”
“The vault is fireproof.”
A search team entered Bennett Technologies before dawn.
The fire had destroyed most of the server level.
The executive vault survived.
Inside, investigators found contracts, cash, passports, and a small authentication device.
But the device had been damaged by heat.
It displayed only part of each rotating code.
The offshore transfer would become permanent at midnight.
After that, the money could move through hundreds of accounts.
I connected Lighthouse to the device.
The program analyzed the surviving code patterns.
Every sixty seconds, a new sequence appeared.
Half the numbers were missing.
“We need the original algorithm,” I said.
Ethan sat beside me.
“I know the pattern.”
“How?”
“I helped Dad choose it.”
He wrote six dates on a sheet of paper.
Family birthdays.
Company anniversaries.
The date my grandfather died.
The day I began university.
My father had built his security system from moments he believed he owned.
Lighthouse reconstructed the missing numbers.
At 11:43 p.m., Agent Grant transmitted the complete authentication code to the bank.
The transfer was frozen seventeen minutes before the deadline.
The fifty million dollars would remain available for restitution.
Students would be repaid.
Investors would recover part of their losses.
My father would never touch it again.
Ethan leaned back in his chair.
“That should count for something.”
“It will.”
He smiled weakly.
“Reduced charges?”
“No.”
I closed the laptop.
“It will count as the first honest thing you have done.”
His smile disappeared.
As officers returned him to custody, he stopped beside me.
“There is one thing Dad never told you.”
“What?”
“Grandpa did not choose you because you were honest.”
“Why did he choose me?”
“Because Lighthouse was not your first invention.”
“I do not understand.”
Ethan looked toward the investigators.
“You created something when you were twelve.”
May you like
“What did I create?”
“The program that built our father’s fortune.”
