You locked yourself inside a crime scene

I woke in intensive care with three broken ribs, a fractured pelvis, two shattered legs, and a morphine fog that still wasn’t strong enough to smother rage.

The first thing I asked for was Mara Chen.

The second was Packet Seven.

Mara arrived before sunrise, still wearing yesterday’s charcoal suit under a rescue vest. She had been head of internal security at Mercer Industrial for five years and the only executive I still trusted without qualification.

“It worked,” she said quietly. “The transmitter sent six upload packets exactly where you programmed them.”

“Six?” I asked.

Her pause told me the rest.

“Packet Seven vanished thirty-nine seconds after launch.”

Even through the pain, that cut cleanly.

Packet Seven was the real blade. The warehouse footage alone proved attempted murder and demolition sabotage, but Packet Seven held the cross-linked credential logs — proof of who forged my signature, who altered the inspection reports, and who accessed the demolition controls from inside the executive network.

Without it, Elias could still claim panic, accident, confusion, sabotage by unknown insiders.

Mara set a tablet on my blanket. News anchors were already describing a “catastrophic warehouse collapse” that nearly killed Mercer Industrial founder Victor Mercer. My condition was listed as unstable. The company’s planned public offering had been “temporarily delayed.”

Then the screen shifted to Elias.

He stood outside the hospital in a dark coat, eyes red enough to look convincing.

“Victor is family,” he told cameras. “My only concern is his recovery and the company he built.”

My jaw tightened so hard it hurt my ribs.

“Board?” I asked.

“Emergency session in two hours,” Mara said. “Elias wants temporary operating control while you’re incapacitated. He’s also filed a sealed argument that your signature approved the structural changes.”

Of course he had.

Then she slid a second printout across my lap.

Someone had used my biometric executive seal at 4:12 a.m. to authorize pre-IPO communications with the banks.

I had been unconscious.

Which meant the man trying to inherit my company before I died had help powerful enough to move while I was still under anesthesia.