…to the offshore wallet. She won\u2019t check the bank until Monday.”<\/p>\n
The email was sent to an address I didn’t recognize, but the signature at the bottom made my blood run cold. Elena. My sister.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t cry. The betrayal was too massive, too surgically precise for tears. Callum and my own sister had plotted to steal the last piece of my mother I had left. They thought they had outsmarted me. They thought my grief would make me slow.<\/p>\n
But in Callum\u2019s desperate rush to get to the airport, he made a catastrophic mistake. He hadn’t just left his laptop open; his password manager was still unlocked.<\/p>\n
My fingers flew across the keyboard. I clicked the link in the email chain that led to the offshore crypto portal. It asked for a two-factor authentication code. My heart pounded. I looked around the bedroom\u2014his second phone was gone, but his iPad was still plugged in on the nightstand. I swiped it open. The notification for the 6-digit login code was sitting right on the lock screen.<\/p>\n
I was in.<\/p>\n
There it was. $790,000.00. The funds were in a temporary holding pattern, waiting for Callum to manually authorize the final conversion into untraceable cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n
I didn’t just cancel the transfer. I opened a new browser tab, created a high-security trust account under my mother’s maiden name\u2014something Callum knew nothing about\u2014and wired every single cent out of the offshore portal. Then, I changed the password to his crypto account, his main email, and his iCloud.<\/p>\n
Finally, I picked up my phone and dialed the FBI’s financial crimes division to report a coordinated wire fraud.<\/p>\n
Three hours later, my phone buzzed. It was another text from the unknown number.
\n\u201cWhat did you do? The account is empty. Please, my flight boards in twenty minutes, I have nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
I poured myself a glass of the expensive wine he had left on the counter, watched the police cruisers pull into my driveway to take my formal statement, and typed my only reply.<\/p>\n
“Have a safe flight, Callum. Tell Elena I said hi.”<\/p>\n
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