142 Investigating End

"Liz! I was verifying something, as I didn't believe my father's words. Jonas Raimi was the one who made his own son watch him hang! He was a crook who was running a shady business, so my father just used shady methods to defeat him! We were wrong!"

As Liz heard the CEO say these words, everything she was going to say disappeared from her mind.

His own father was the man who had made him watch while he hung?

This…changed a lot.

"I'll be back in 10 hours, but I have to go now. I know you can do it, Elizabeth. Just be very careful of that man. He is far more twisted than he can imagine."

Hearing silence from the other line, Will said this before hanging up.

Holding the phone, Liz was imagining how it must have felt for such a young boy to see the man he looked up to die in front of his eyes.

She shuddered, breaking out of the spell and noticing that the CEO was no longer on the line.

Putting the phone to the side, Liz looked at herself in the mirror.

Jonas Raimi. He was the one who was actually responsible for everything.

Sam was just a pawn who had clearly been set up by the man to take revenge after his death.

After all, what better way to light a permanent fire of revenge in a kid other than making him watch such a horrific thing and telling him that he needed to avenge him?

At least, that was what Liz imagined had happened, and she had a hunch that she was right.

Regardless, Sam needed to be stopped, even though he had just been caught in his father's web.

It all checked out. It was also possible that her mother had tried to stop the man from doing this to the son she loved, but he must have tied her up in order to make sure that she wouldn't foil his plan.

People like these, who used their children to further their plans in such disgusting ways, really did deserve to die.

Gritting her teeth, Liz got up and prepared to take a shower.

She had already figured out his plan, and all she needed to do was stop him.

….

"Everything is going according to plan. You just need to spread the news. Got it?"

In an alleyway beside the production factory, 2 people were standing in the shadows in the early morning and discussing something in hushed tones.

"They'll never know what hit them. This is brilliant! Why are you doing this, anyway?"

"None of your business. Now, get out of here before someone sees you."

Grimacing, one of the men nodded before quickly leaving.

Sam, left alone, looked up at the factory while smiling wide.

Today, his family would finally be having the revenge that had long been coming.

Flashes of seeing a man hanging from the ceiling passed across his eyes, making him frown and shake his head, trying to get rid of them.

He had admired his father and had always wanted to be like him. Theirs had been a happy family, until one man had come and ruined it all.

In one night, they had lost everything, and he had been witness to his father crying.

After that, just when they thought things couldn't get any worse, he was told by his father to stand there and watch.

"Sam, all this is the fault of those Bradshaws. You must take revenge for me. You must."

He had been delirious, before he stepped up on the stool and kicked it.

Even after he had stopped moving, Sam had continued to watch, as he just couldn't come to terms with the fact that this had just happened.

It was only after his mother hobbled forth with the chair she was tied to and called the police did he move.

He went and hugged his father's legs, vowing to take revenge.

Now, it was time.

Walking forward, he prepared to enter the factory as usual, but the moment he stepped foot inside, he knew that something was wrong.

The police? What?!

"Mr. Sam Raimi, you are under arrest for the intention to defraud Happle, Inc. by stealing trade secrets. You have the right to-"

….

A few minutes later.

Sam was sitting with his hands cuffed to the chair, looking around with a manic expression on his face.

On one side was the mirror, from where he knew those who were responsible for his arrest must be watching.

"THIS CHANGES NOTHING! EVERYTHING IS ALREADY IN MOTION!"

He screamed at it, not for the first time.

However, this time, the door opened to allow in a beautiful woman with a sad expression on her face.

Sitting in front of him, she took out a file in silence and picked out a few photos before placing them in front of him.

He was going to shout at her again, but noticing that these were photos of his father, he stopped.

He recognized the face, but he couldn't recognize the locations.

"Jonas Raimi, seen here smuggling designs from foreign bidders to US soil to build phones that could be easily tapped."

"Jonas Raimi, accepting money in cash for said services."

"After his company was acquired, he is seen here talking to them in frustration, as they abandoned him too."

As the woman said these words in a deadpan tone, Sam once again smiled before saying, "You think you can change the memory of my father by showing me some photos and claiming that they are what you say they are? You must be dreaming. You can't make me tell you anything, especially not using half-assed methods like these."

Sighing, the woman put the photos back in the file before taking out three other photos.

Two were of the meeting with the man he had just had before getting caught, and one showed the details of a software.

"It's over, Sam. We know you were going to do the same thing your father did by coincidence: you were going to smuggle in a backdoor on the latest operating system and as soon as the phone was released, you would leak the data of millions of innocent customers to the world. All of their personal photos, calls, contacts, everything. Happle would forever have been tainted as a company that no one can trust, and you would be laughing all the way home. As of now, we have completely scrapped the OS. It's over."

It was as if each word that the woman said was like a bullet that embedded itself deep into Sam's body.

Each one of them made him wince, and drop his jaw while looking at her incredulously.

This was years of planning! And he had done everything right to cover up his tracks.

He had been perfect and meticulous, so much so no one would be able to find the backdoor no matter how much they looked in the OS.

How the hell had this woman found out his plan and stopped it?!

Seeing his raised eyebrows and open mouth, the woman once again sighed before saying, "Yes, your plan was perfect. But you didn't account for one thing. Me.

"Your father was a software and hardware aficionado, and I bet you learned everything you know from him. After realizing that, it was a simple matter of putting myself in your shoes and figuring out your plan. I followed your every movement, so tampering with hardware was out of the question. The software also checked out at first, and it even checks out now. But it was the only thing that was left, and you just confirmed that I was right. Oh, I didn't really need that confirmation, but it's still nice to have it. The man you were meeting with, a reporter who sets up leaks like these, is enough proof. You even put that strike into motion because you weren't ready, and it gave you the time you needed. It's over now, Sam. Your father was going to smuggle spying equipment onto the phones 10 years ago, but the Bradshaw family stopped him using that method as they didn't have concrete proof. These photos were obtained later. Your father just wanted to have revenge even though he was dead. So, you became his means. You shouldn't have to suffer more and blame your mother for what happened. Your father was the only one to blame. Listen to me, and just take a plea deal."

Just as Liz was almost ending her speech, Will ran to the glass outside the room, and his face had such a proud expression that it surprised Keren who was standing beside him.

"Wow, brother. Never hurt her. Otherwise, who knows what she can be capable of if she has bad intentions instead of good ones…"