Chapter 7 - THE UNOPENED SAFE
Julian dragged his last suitcase toward the elevator, his head bowed, completely broken. Fiona was still weeping loudly into a silk handkerchief, her golden birthday tiara sitting crooked on her head as the deputies ushered them into the elevator cab.
Just as the metal doors began to slide shut, Julian reached out his hand, blocking the sensor.
He looked at me through the narrowing gap, a sudden, sinister grin spreading across his face despite his ruined life.
"You think you won, Sloan?" he sneered, his voice dropping into a raspy whisper. "You get the apartment. Congratulations. But you forgot one thing."
I stood by the foyer table, my arms crossed, watching him coldly. "Did I?"
"The wall safe in the master closet," Julian whispered, his eyes glinting with a dark, toxic victory. "The one keyed to my biometric print. The one you’ve never been able to open."
My heart gave a sudden, hard thud against my ribs, but I kept my face entirely expressionless.
"Everything you need to prove financial fraud... all the deeds to my offshore accounts, the real estate holding records, and your late father's original trust bonds... they're inside that safe," Julian grinned as the elevator doors slowly began to close again. "And without my thumbprint, you’ll never get inside. Have fun living in an empty house with a useless piece of paper, Sloan."
The doors snapped shut. The elevator indicator light shifted, showing its descent to the garage.
I stood alone in the silent, echoing penthouse.
Slowly, I walked down the long hallway, past the master bedroom, and stepped into the walk-in closet. There, hidden behind a sliding mirror panel, sat the heavy, matte-black steel wall safe.
Julian was right about one thing: the safe required a high-grade biometric scan to open.
What he didn't know was that three weeks ago, while he was passed out drunk on the sofa after one of his failed pitch meetings, I had taken his right hand and pressed his thumb against a high-resolution dental impression silicone pad I had purchased online.
I reached into my handbag, pulled out a small velvet pouch, and extracted a perfect, flexible 3D-molded cast of Julian’s right thumb.
I pressed the silicone mold firmly against the safe's digital scanner.
The red light flickered once. Twice.
Then... a high-pitched BEEP.
The heavy steel bolt retracted with a deep, mechanical click, and the heavy door swung slowly open, revealing stacks of dark leather ledgers, offshore bank keys, and a thick manila envelope sealed with red wax.
I pulled out the top folder, opened it under the closet light, and felt a cold, sharp smile spread across my face.
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Julian thought today was the end of the story.
He had no idea that the sixty dishes had only just begun.
