Chapter 7 - The Digital Retaliation
"If we hit them through the courts alone," Dave spoke up, leaning over Sarah’s shoulder, "Ryan will receive a legal notification on his phone within twenty minutes. The moment he sees the injunction, he’ll try to move whatever liquid cash Little Fox & Fern currently holds in local operating reserves."
"How much is in the operating accounts right now?" Sarah asked.
"Three point four million dollars," I answered instantly. "It’s our Q4 inventory reserve, earmarked for holiday fabric orders and factory payroll across our three domestic manufacturing hubs."
"If Ryan drains that before the bank receives a formal court order," Dave warned, "the company will bounce payroll on Friday. You'll lose your suppliers, your credit rating will tank, and Vanguard will buy your scraps for pennies at a bankruptcy auction."
"Can you lock him out?" I asked Dave.
Dave pulled his high-performance laptop from his backpack, opening a terminal window filled with scrolling green and white text.
"When you built Little Fox & Fern nine years ago, Erin, who set up your original AWS cloud infrastructure?"
A small, genuine smile touched my lips for the first time in ten days. "You did."
"Exactly," Dave said, his fingers dancing across the mechanical keyboard with blistering speed. "Ryan thinks that because he changed the surface passwords on Shopify and Google Workspace, he controls the company. But he doesn't know that the root master architectural key for your entire digital domain isn't tied to your corporate email. It’s tied to a hard-coded security token encrypted on my private server in Austin."
Dave hit enter.
A red confirmation box flashed across his screen:
**ROOT OVERRIDE INITIATED. REVERTING ALL ADMIN CREDENTIALS TO MASTER REPOSITORY.**
"Done," Dave said, turning the screen toward me. "Every single password Ryan changed in the last ten days has just been wiped. His access privileges have been permanently revoked. His phone number ending in 4419 has been blacklisted from all two-factor authentication loops."
"And the banking app?" I asked.
"Your Chase business profile is now linked exclusively to this secure hardware token," Dave said, tossing a small black USB dongle onto the conference table. "Ryan couldn't move ten cents from your accounts right now if his life depended on it."
Right on cue, my leather tote bag vibrated.
I reached in and pulled out my original cell phone, which I had kept switched off until this moment.
The moment it reconnected to the cellular network, a barrage of forty-seven missed calls and dozens of text messages flooded the screen.
Thirty of them were from Ryan.
*1:45 PM: Erin, where are you? The deputies said the house was empty.*
*2:15 PM: Erin, pick up the damn phone! You are violating a court-ordered medical evaluation!*
*2:45 PM: What did you do to the Shopify portal? Why can’t I log in?*
*3:10 PM: ERIN. ANSWER ME. THE CHASE APP IS THROWING A SECURITY LOCKOUT. CALL ME RIGHT NOW.*
And the most recent message, sent four minutes ago:
*3:30 PM: If you think you can run with my son, you are out of your mind. I am at the factory right now with the regional auditor. By tomorrow morning, you won't have a penny to your name.*
I looked up at Sarah Vance. "He’s at our primary distribution warehouse in Mount Vernon."
"Who is with him?" Sarah asked.
"He said the regional auditor," I replied. "Which means Marcus Vance is likely there with him, preparing to sign the physical closing transfer documents for Vanguard Global."
Sarah stood up, smoothing the lapels of her charcoal jacket. A cold, lethal spark danced in her eyes.
"Marcus has always been an arrogant idiot," she said smoothly. "He thinks having a law degree means you can commit felonies with impunity. Well, Mount Vernon is only a forty-five-minute drive from here."
"What are we going to do?" Paige asked.
Sarah looked at my twelve-year-old daughter, then at me.
May you like
"We are going to stage an unannounced board meeting," Sarah said. "And we are bringing the state police with us."
***
