Chapter 66 - THE TRAITOR INSIDE THE WORKER COUNCIL
The Newark server room was sealed immediately.
Claire refused to call the unknown user a traitor.
Not yet.
She remembered Noah Bennett from another story—irrelevant, don't cross universes. Need stay within story. Instead, she remembered what had happened repeatedly in her own world: workers blamed before evidence.
A login location was not a person.
The proxy vote had originated from an internal network node used by the worker council.
Only twelve elected representatives had access.
Federal agents wanted the names.
The council resisted.
“We will cooperate with a warrant,” Denise Parker said. “Not a fishing expedition.”
Claire supported her.
Some commentators attacked the workers for protecting corruption.
Denise answered:
“Due process does not become suspicious because poor people use it.”
The warrant arrived.
Access records narrowed the vote to a terminal outside the payroll office.
Security footage showed three people entering the hallway.
A janitor.
An IT technician.
Adrian.
The story exploded.
Adrian had motive, reporters said.
He had lost Whitmore control.
Worker ownership destroyed his inheritance.
Federal acquisition could preserve his surrendered assets through reimbursement.
Old footage of the dinner plate returned to television.
The headline wrote itself.
ABUSIVE HEIR SABOTAGES WIFE’S WORKER EMPIRE.
Claire hated how plausible it sounded.
Adrian did too.
He did not ask her to defend him.
He surrendered his phone.
His laptop.
His vehicle records.
His biometric data.
“I spent my whole life assuming people like me deserved the benefit of the doubt,” he told investigators. “I don’t get to demand it now. But I do get evidence.”
Claire looked at him.
It was one of the few moments when she saw genuine change rather than apology.
The IT technician, Malik Dawson, also cooperated.
The janitor, Rosa Chen, was immediately targeted online because she had two misdemeanor shoplifting convictions from her twenties.
Claire saw the same mechanism.
Past poverty turned into present guilt.
She issued one statement:
“Her criminal record does not authenticate a federal proxy vote.”
The forensic evidence cleared Rosa first.
She had no computer access.
Malik’s credentials had been used.
But Malik was working on another floor.
Cloned again.
Adrian had entered the payroll office hallway.
Why?
He had come to meet Denise.
Denise confirmed it.
Adrian still became the leading suspect because his physical presence placed him closest.
Then Michael found the actual method.
The vote had been submitted through a hidden virtual machine installed inside an old Whitmore accounting server.
The server predated worker ownership.
It had been running silently for eleven years.
Somebody had built permanent access into the company long before Claire took control.
Who maintained the server?
Whitmore family IT.
Who authorized it?
Adrian.
His electronic signature appeared.
Adrian went pale.
“I don’t remember.”
Claire almost laughed from exhaustion.
Again.
Memory.
Signature.
Crash.
Adrian’s past had become a graveyard of documents he could not recall.
But the authorization date was important.
Three days before his car crash.
The same crash Margaret said Leonard Hayes arranged after Adrian signed an agreement returning patent rights to workers.
Adrian may have created the proxy server before losing part of his memory.
Why?
A recovered email answered.
Adrian wrote to Thomas Bennett.
I installed your channel. If Dad finds it, I’m finished.
Claire stared.
“You worked with my father.”
Adrian looked devastated.
Apparently.
The recovered conversation continued.
Thomas:
You are protecting evidence, not me.
Adrian:
Claire can never know I helped.
Thomas:
She will know when she is ready to hate both of us.
Claire sat down.
Her marriage had been manipulated by Thomas.
Rebecca Sloan introduced them under Thomas’s instruction.
Now evidence showed Adrian had secretly worked with Thomas before the crash.
Was the relationship real?
The question hurt more than ownership.
Adrian read the messages.
“I don’t remember this.”
Claire’s voice was flat.
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
He nodded.
No defense.
The hidden server was originally designed to mirror Whitmore records before Arthur or Margaret could destroy them.
Adrian created access for Thomas.
Later someone repurposed the same channel for C. Bennett proxy votes.
Who had inherited administrator rights?
Michael traced passwords.
The last authorized admin before the crash was Daniel Whitmore.
Adrian’s biological father.
Dead.
Another dead credential.
But Daniel’s access was maintained by one living person.
Evelyn Reed.
Daniel’s widow.
Adrian’s biological mother.
Everyone turned toward her.
Evelyn looked stunned.
“I never used it.”
Federal agents searched her devices.
No evidence.
Then she remembered Daniel had entrusted a backup key to his attorney before his death.
Name:
Jonathan Price.
Price had later become counsel to Miriam Keane’s federal office.
He died four years earlier.
His law practice was inherited by his daughter.
Karen Morales.
Claire’s current attorney.
Claire felt the room go silent around her.
Karen had represented Claire through the federal receivership fight.
She had access to every strategy.
Every document.
Every privileged conversation.
Karen immediately stepped away from the table.
“I did not submit those votes.”
Claire stared at her.
“Did you know about the server?”
Karen hesitated.
That hesitation was enough.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since your father’s estate opened.”
“You were my lawyer.”
“Yes.”
“You knew someone had been using my identity.”
“I knew a proxy existed. I thought Thomas created it.”
“You thought my dead father was voting as me?”
“I thought it was a legacy protection.”
Claire laughed in disbelief.
A legacy protection.
Another euphemism.
Karen admitted Samuel Greene referred her to Claire precisely because her father’s firm had held the server key.
Thomas wanted independent counsel positioned near Claire if the federal trigger ever activated.
Karen believed the proxy votes were part of Thomas’s defense architecture.
She never checked whether Claire consented.
“Why?”
Karen’s eyes filled.
“Because Thomas Bennett was a legend to people like my father.”
There it was.
The working-class hero had become powerful enough to receive the same unquestioned obedience Whitmore once demanded.
Claire stood.
“My father being poor did not make him incapable of abusing power.”
Karen nodded.
“You’re right.”
Claire terminated her representation.
Immediately.
Then investigators found evidence Karen had not cast the recent vote.
Her key had been copied months earlier.
During a legal conference.
Hotel security footage showed someone entering her room.
A cleaning contractor was initially suspected.
Claire stopped that narrative before it started.
“Find access records before you blame housekeeping.”
They did.
The contractor had entered only after Karen checked out.
The actual unauthorized entry occurred using a master hotel credential.
Issued to conference security.
Security director:
Marcus Hill.
Claire stared at the name.
Marcus—the man connected to the Carolina Heritage land deal.
The man who claimed Caleb Ward misled him.
Marcus denied copying the key.
He said his staff handled credentials.
Another chain.
Another delegation.
Then he admitted something.
Caleb Ward had asked him to ensure Karen’s laptop was “backed up” during the conference.
Caleb.
Plant Three survivor.
Advocate.
Distressed-asset investor.
The man who repeatedly stood on both sides of the story.
Federal agents searched Caleb’s office.
Empty.
Computer gone.
Phone off.
At his old guardianship apartment, they found one envelope addressed to Claire.
Inside:
I DID NOT VOTE AS YOU.
I FOUND OUT WHO DID.
DON’T LET THE GOVERNMENT ARREST THEM.
THEY ARE TRYING TO GIVE THE FACTORIES BACK.
Claire turned the page.
A name.
Denise Parker.
The Newark machinist who had challenged Claire’s power.
The worker who insisted there should never be a Bennett dynasty.
The woman who led the radical-transparency vote.
May you like
Claire looked through the cafeteria glass.
Denise was already being taken into federal custody.
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