My senior business partner told the board he was boarding an eleven-hour flight to Zurich for an emergency investment summit.
With the indictments, the arrests, and Jason’s flight, the legal battles began to settle. The board of Brock Bio-Tech, decimated and disgraced, formally reinstated my 25% equity stake. I immediately began the process of severing all ties to the toxic legacy Jason had left behind. My first act was symbolic: I renamed the company Cross Systems.
My new office was the same executive suite Jason had once occupied, stripped of his personal touches. Cleaning it out was a cathartic, if unsettling, task. Files, old mementos, and corporate detritus filled boxes.
As I sifted through the items, I noticed a subtle discolored patch on the wall behind a heavy, built-in bookshelf. It was almost imperceptible, hidden from casual view. My fingers traced the outline. A hidden wall safe.
My heart began to pound. Jason had always been meticulous about secrets.
I remembered a specific series of numbers, his old birthday, that he sometimes used for minor codes. I tried it. The tumblers clicked, and the safe door swung open with a soft sigh.
Inside, nestled among a few loose papers, was an unmarked, sealed envelope. And another key. This one was identical to the one I’d received in the mail—a duplicate to my private residence, a heavy steel deadbolt key. He had multiple copies.
The implications were chilling. He had access to my home, even now. Or, at least, he had ensured that he could have access.
Beneath the key, neatly organized, were the corporate policy documents I’d found in the strange envelope. Three additional offshore accounts, each naming me as the sole insured party, with a value of $5,000,000. Policies taken out six months ago, just before I joined as a junior partner.
But this time, I noticed something new. Tucked within the bundle was an unfiled, unsigned corporate directive. It specified that in the event of my “unforeseen incapacitation or demise,” the proceeds of these three additional policies would be immediately transferred to a charitable trust. A trust with a very specific, and familiar, beneficiary clause: “To support innovative research into advanced cryo-preservation techniques for human tissue.”
Jason’s personal passion. His obsession.
It wasn’t just about the money for survival. It was about funding his pet projects, even in death. He had orchestrated my murder to not only collect the $5,000,000 from Apex Mutual but also to covertly fund his future research endeavors through these hidden, unfiled policies, ensuring his legacy continued regardless of my survival. The funds would have been laundered through a charitable trust, making them untraceable back to him.
He truly was sociopathic, a master of long-term, multi-layered schemes. He planned to profit from my death in layers.
I closed the safe, the implications settling like a cold weight. Jason wasn’t just an antagonist; he was a force. A meticulously calculating, deeply unsettling presence that continued to exert control even from afar. The keys, the policies, the hidden trust—they were all his way of saying, “I’m still here. I’m still watching.”
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