Chapter 34 Access Denied
ACCESS DENIED
BECKETT
She disappears behind the elevator doors before I can say anything.
She saw it. The headline.
I saw the way her eyes narrowed, tracking the ticker like she was reading between the lines.
I don’t blame her. She’s not wrong.
And I’m done pretending I have time to be careful.
The hotel’s business center is nearly empty—just rows of vacant desks and humming machines behind a glass wall near the lobby bar. I slide into a corner workstation, roll my shoulders once, and take a breath.
This is it.
No more soft entry. No more waiting for a safer window.
I wake up the screen, pull up the browser, and navigate to the Midtown internal portal. My credentials slide through. Easy. Routine. I’ve done this a thousand times.
But the next step?
Different username. Different password.
Access I was never supposed to have.
I don’t pause to justify it. I don’t have to.
This is the only play left.
The dashboard loads—slow, lagging under the weight of its own secrets.
I set the date range. Targeted. Specific. The ones I found last night, and more.
PIPE Trades. Flow of Funds. Internal Settlement Logs.
Run. The wheel spins.
Spins.
And then—There it is.
Rows of transactions. Amounts that don’t line up. Sell-offs that shouldn’t exist.
It’s not just smoke. It’s fire.
Undeniable movement just before the PIPE deal closes.
Someone knew. Someone acted.
I download everything. Attach the PDF to the encrypted shell.
Then I start pulling more. Broader date ranges. Backed-up internal memos. Even a flagged trade or two I hadn’t planned on touching.
If I’m getting locked out, I might as well take the whole damn house down with me.
The screen flashes.
ACCESS DENIED.
Session Terminated.
I stare at it, frozen.
And then…
I breathe.
No alarms. No crash. Just silence.
That’s it. I’m out. And weirdly, it feels like freedom.
I forward the data to Sugar with a short note: “That’s all I’ve got. They’ve cut me off.”
And it’s done. I'm not a mole anymore. I'm a man who made a choice.
I push away from the desk, still running hot, but clearheaded.
The damage is done.
Ashley’s face from earlier flickers through my mind’s eye. The tension in her jaw. The way she looked at me like she wanted to ask a hundred questions but didn’t know where to start.
She deserves answers.
Soon, she’ll get them.
All of them.