Chapter 37
chapter thirty seven
ring ring
My hands clasped together on the desk as I looked at Jamie.
“If you’re lying about this…”
He lifted both palms. “I’m not, Romano. I’ve done a lot of shit I’ll own up to. But stalking that girl? That’s not one of them.”
I stared at him, unsure why I was even entertaining the possibility that he was telling the truth.
“Bug my place.” His cheeks were red, and his breaths weren’t really breaths at all.
He was panicking. But it wasn’t for the reasons I’d hoped.
“Search the house. Take everything. Hell, lock me in here for a week. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
I’d considered it. Genuinely. But then I thought of his wife, his daughter. And for a moment, I hated that I had the conscience to let him go.
“We’ve got the monitoring devices. That’ll be enough.”
A flicker of relief passed over his face. “Thank you. I mean it.”
I exhaled slowly. “This is for her. Not you.”
“As it should be.” He nodded once. “Am I good to go?”
I said nothing, just waved him off. Moments later, the door closed behind him, and the room went quiet.
I stood, stretching my spine, and wandered to the window. The New York sky was unusually clear. The storm that came after London had somewhat passed; we were getting closer and closer to finding out who was merging into our systems, and Cora was happy. I was happy.
Until things happened.
Every lead we had on Jamie had turned on its head.
Cora was unravelling again.
I still didn’t know who the fuck was stalking her.
And we’d had four more breaches in the space of twenty-four hours.
Maybe the rapture was coming. My rapture, to be specific.
The office door opened behind me, and I didn’t have to look to know who it was.
“So?” Oscar called as he stomped over. “What the fuck did he say?”
I turned to see him step in with Nathaniel close behind. My closed fists rested back on my desk, nails slicing my palms as my eyes locked on the pair. “He says he’s innocent. And I think I believe him.”
“You believe him?” Oscar frowned. “You.” He pointed at me. “You believe him?”
I stood up and shrugged, that ache in my back solidifying. “If he was guilty, why would he walk straight into the lion’s den? Again?”
Oscar claimed my chair like it was his. “To throw you off. It’s ballsy, but it works.”
I put those thoughts on hold and glanced at Nathaniel. “Did you run the tests?”
He nodded, no emotion. Like usual with him. "Yeah."
“…And?”
“Nothing.” He yawned, like the takedown was a story he'd heard eight thousand times. “No traces, no hidden logs, nothing actionable. We couldn’t link a single byte to him.”
I knew from his stern eyes and gaping mouth that Oscar wasn’t buying it.
He stood again, pacing in a circle before his hands dragged through his hair. “H-he could’ve wiped it clean. We know he’s good.”
My head dropped into my hands, hips aching. “I know, but we can’t run off hunches anymore. We need something concrete.”
“We had concrete,” Oscar reminded me, his arm outstretched behind him. “Concrete just walked out of the fucking building. Again.”
“Can we just, for one second, assume it’s not Jamie?” I tapped the desk, the tip of my finger turning red. My eyes were back on Oscar, burning with that fire that had always been constant with us. “Whoever’s behind this… they’re strategic. Smart. Jamie never had that kind of control.”
Oscar looked confused. “But the messages to Cora… he was there.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “But the timing was too perfect. The logs are, arguably, too clean. Like someone wanted us to think it was him.”
Nathaniel leaned forward. “There's something else.” He peered at Oscar. “The entries.”
My icy stare flicked to him too. “What fucking entries?”
He looked like wandering around my desk and showing me whatever they’d found was the last thing he wanted to do.
He came round slowly, typed slowly, until the entries were on my screen.
“I wasn’t watching the systems one night; it was just me in the office.
I went to get coffee, and when I came back…
some files were missing. Sensitive ones. ”
“And the cameras? Wiped." Nathaniel added. "We couldn’t trace who accessed them.”
My fingers curled back into fists. “So someone got in. Took what they needed. And got out without a trace.”
“And knew exactly where to look,” Oscar muttered.
I stood back, bewildered. “When was this?”
My little brother peered up at me. “September 30th.”
The night Jamie came to Cora.
Everything I’d been through these past seven months ran through my mind like a broken montage, puzzle pieces that never fit before suddenly sliding into place.
My head shook, feeling heavy and empty all at once. “What if they’re connected?”
“Marcus?” Oscar muttered.
I stood back, staring at my computer like it had just spoken to me. “What if… everything—everything that’s been happening; the leaks, the breaches, Cora… what if they’re all connected?”
I felt my brother shuffle beside me; like one wrong move and I’d detonate. His hands lifted, like he was bracing. “Alright, just… calm down.”
My head whipped to face him. “I’m serious.” My ragged breaths nearly made me lose my balance. “Think about it. The night the Alcott files went missing, what happened?” My mind was on overdrive, and I answered for them. “Cora got her first message.”
Silence hung around us, but in my head it was like a dark symphony was playing.
“A-and the MAC address, when I found it in London, the next day that fucker called me; he knew where I was, knew Cora was listening, and baited me into losing her.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Oscar shaking his head. “But… the day you and Cora went to the Chelsea address, you saw Jamie type that text. It came through right away.”
I locked my eyes on him. “Did you trace it?”
He shrugged, his head shaking. “No, because as I just said, you saw him do it.”
My eyes turned to slits. “And how long did it take us to realise that what we saw wasn’t always the fucking truth, Oscar?” Anger fuelled my stance. “We’ve never run on hunches. We’ve never not done things by the book. Never!”
I was heaving, but I couldn’t stop. I pointed at my desk, at the screen still full of files. “Trace it. Go back to the logs and trace it.”
Oscar barely looked at me before he stole back the chair, his fingers flying across the keyboard.
The screen was a blur of code in no time, coordinates flashing like wiring sparks.
Before long a map filled the screen, but it wasn’t familiar.
Not at first. But the closer the pin got, the more I could make out Manhattan.
The more I could make out Liberty Street.
The more I could make out the building we were standing in right now.
It felt like the floor dropped out from under me. Like the room was tilting sideways, dragging me towards the screen, daring me to see just how royally fucked we were. I jabbed my finger at the screen, adrenaline deadening my arm. “The fuck is this?”
The edges of my vision blurred as Oscar turned, eyes wide, shaking his head. “I don’t know. None of this makes sense.”
Nathaniel stormed behind him, crowding the desk. “That can’t be right.”
But it was. God, it was.
Oscar didn’t get things wrong. His skills eclipsed mine. Hell, eclipsed our entire network team. Which is why it felt like someone had stapled my chest to the floor, nailing my heart in place until it couldn’t beat right.
I staggered back, every nerve short-circuiting. I needed air. I needed space. I needed Cora.
“Marcus?” Oscar’s voice cut after me. “Where the hell are you going?”
I hadn’t even realised I was moving until the door handle was burning under my palm, until I was spilling into the hall.
My legs carried me to the lift on autopilot.
The steel doors closed me in, trapping me with nothing but the sound of my own ragged breathing—and the scream I didn’t let out until the world couldn’t hear it.
All this time, I thought we were counting down the days until he got to us.
But I was wrong.
He was already here.