Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 28
Scarlett rebuilt the false financial trail from its smallest details. The accounts claimed to be decades old, yet their encryption relied on a recent Dominion upgrade. Someone had created them within the past month and inserted historical timestamps. The forgery required access to board-level archives. It also required confidence that no outsider would examine the accounting structure.
Only three executive terminals could rewrite cold storage. Connor’s had been under biometric lock, and Cypher’s showed the fabricated activity used against him. The final terminal belonged to Adrian Cross. Its audit history had been erased immediately after the evidence appeared.
Connor wanted to confront Cross at once. Scarlett stopped him, arguing that accusation without preserved proof would allow another deletion. They mirrored the remaining records through Hayes Group servers outside Dominion control. Cross could no longer erase every copy by commanding his own system.
The recovered logs showed his terminal generating Cypher’s false signatures. It had also accessed the safe residence phrase database before Summer’s kidnapping. Cross had not merely protected Voss after the attack. He had prepared the door through which Summer was taken.
Connor called the detention unit and ordered Cypher released. The commander refused, stating that Cross now supervised all high-risk prisoners. A transfer team was already moving Cypher to another facility. Connor had never authorized the relocation.
Scarlett recognized the pattern from Stephen’s attempts to remove witnesses. If Cypher disappeared during transport, Cross could call it escape or suicide. Connor mobilized loyal operatives without using Dominion’s monitored channels. They intercepted the convoy beneath an industrial overpass.
The vehicles carried men wearing Dominion uniforms, but their identification numbers belonged to employees on other continents. Cypher was bound inside the center transport with a weapon planted beside him. The team intended to stage an armed escape and kill him. Connor attacked before they completed the scene.
Scarlett remained inside the armored vehicle and used traffic controls to seal both ends of the road. When false guards attempted to flee, automated barriers trapped them beneath the overpass. Connor’s team disarmed the survivors and recovered transfer orders signed through Cross’s terminal. The evidence became impossible to explain away.
Cypher emerged injured but alive. He accepted Connor’s apology without ceremony because Voss and Cross remained active. Their friendship had survived worse than suspicion, but Connor promised never again to let a board member isolate someone under his protection. Cypher replied that trust still required evidence, not blindness.
He explained that Cross helped design Dominion’s early financial structure while Voss controlled advanced technology. Together, they could reconstruct C-7 even after Connor dissolved the shared authority. Scarlett’s mother likely discovered their attempt to weaponize Aegis. Her death protected a conspiracy that continued for years.
Cross funded Lawrence Brickson as a disposable challenger. He later used Whitmore Capital and Stephen Hayes to locate Aegis without exposing Dominion. Voss performed the violence while Cross remained inside the boardroom, presenting himself as stability. Every crisis increased his control.
Connor informed the board that Cross was under investigation. Cross responded before the evidence reached every director. He called an emergency leadership session and accused Connor of attacking authorized security personnel to free a suspected traitor. The intercepted convoy became proof of instability in his version.
Cross listed Connor’s recent decisions: exposing his identity, spending billions on Hayes debt, risking Dominion personnel for Summer, and losing part of Aegis to Voss. He framed devotion as recklessness. Several frightened directors accepted the argument because it promised an end to chaos. None asked who had engineered the chaos in the first place.
Scarlett prepared the forged-account evidence for the board. Cross blocked external files from entering Dominion’s meeting system. He also classified the detention records under emergency security law. The architecture Connor created to protect secrets now protected the traitor controlling it.
Summer called through her new watch while they prepared to return to headquarters. She asked whether Uncle Cypher was safe. Connor let Cypher answer personally. Hearing his voice restored the child’s certainty that adults could return after disappearing.
Scarlett told Connor that Cross would attack his family during the board session. Connor expected the tactic and refused to hide them as if they were shameful liabilities. He would defend every decision made to protect Summer. If Dominion rejected the man he had become, the empire did not deserve him.
They entered headquarters through a private route. Loyal employees quietly provided access, but official systems rejected Connor’s badge. Cross had begun transferring executive control before the board voted. The coup was already operating beneath its legal performance.
Cypher attempted the founder recovery code. C-7 answered first and locked him outside. Cross appeared on the security display, expressing regret that Connor forced the board to act. Armed internal guards surrounded the corridor.
Connor demanded that Cross face him without hiding behind employees. Cross said leadership required protecting institutions from emotional men. He had watched the Merchant of Death become a husband, father, and liability. Dominion needed someone willing to choose power first.
The central system displayed Connor’s executive status. One permission after another changed from active to suspended. Before the emergency vote even began, the empire no longer recognized its creator. Adrian Cross had frozen Connor out of Dominion—and trapped him inside its headquarters. Armed footsteps approached from both ends of the corridor. Escape was now closing rapidly by the second.
