I had spent my entire adult life building impenetrable digital fortresses for governments and Fortune 500 companies. Dismantling the financial infrastructure of one arrogant, parasitic man was the easiest coding I had done in a decade.
First, I logged into the highly secure luxury concierge portal that had arranged the trip. The itinerary was loaded on the screen: Private Seaplane Charter, Villa Paradiso 7-Day Rental, Private Chef Services (Canceled by Mr. Marcus Cross).
He had canceled the private chef so I would have to cook for his mistress. The absolute, sociopathic cruelty of that detail fueled my keystrokes.
I clicked the red button marked CANCEL ENTIRE ITINERARY.
A warning box flashed on the screen: WARNING: Cancellation within 24 hours of departure incurs a $50,000 non-refundable penalty fee. Do you wish to proceed?
I authorized it without blinking. Fifty thousand dollars was nothing. It was the cheapest divorce retainer I would ever pay in my life. I hit CONFIRM.
Next, I opened my primary banking app. I had created a secondary, heavily funded checking account for Marcus years ago, linking three Platinum American Express cards to it so he never had to ask me for an allowance.
With three rapid taps, I initiated a hard freeze on every single card sitting in his Prada wallet. The cards were now useless pieces of plastic.
I navigated to our primary joint checking account. It held roughly half a million dollars in liquid cash—money I had deposited just last week from a stock dividend. I initiated a wire transfer, draining the account down to exactly zero dollars and zero cents. The funds were instantly routed into my impenetrable, heavily encrypted Aegis corporate trust, an account Marcus didn’t even know existed, let alone had access to.
Finally, I opened the proprietary smart-home application for our sprawling, ten-million-dollar Bel-Air mansion. The entire estate ran on Aegis software.
I accessed the biometric security logs. I deleted Marcus’s thumbprint from the master gate registry. I deleted his retina scan from the front door. I changed the six-digit override codes, locked the garage containing his leased Ferrari, and activated the full perimeter lockdown protocol.
It took me exactly four minutes. In two hundred and forty seconds, I had systematically, legally, and entirely erased Marcus from my financial and physical universe.
I snapped the laptop shut, slipping it back into my tote bag.
I walked out of the terminal shade, sliding into the plush, cool leather seat of my waiting SUV. My driver, David, a stoic former military contractor who had been with me for years, looked at me in the rearview mirror.
“We aren’t flying today, David,” I said, tapping the privacy glass. “Take me to the Four Seasons downtown, please. I need a suite for the week.”
“Right away, Ms. Eleanor,” David replied smoothly, putting the heavy SUV into gear.
