Luca
I hadn't slept since yesterday.
Not even for a second after Eva told me the financial records were moved. The moment she said it, my mind kicked into overdrive, and I've been chasing shadows ever since—searching for cracks, backdoors, anything that could lead me into Wolfe Enterprises financial sector.
My eyes burned, my shoulders ached, and the caffeine wasn't helping anymore. But I wasn't stopping—not until I found something. Anything. Wolfe Enterprises had taken too much from my family to let this go.
My father had worked for them. Trusted them. And when he discovered shady offshore moves in the books ten years ago, they fired him without a cent. Labeled him a liar. They buried him in silence.
That silence ended with me.
I tapped away at my keyboard, several windows open on the screen—network maps, false login IDs, decryption scripts. I was trying to bypass a section of their internal accounts system again, but they'd upgraded their security last week. Probably after the last leak.
I growled, shoving back from the desk. My apartment was dark, cluttered—takeout boxes, coffee cups, and the glow of my three monitors. I raked a hand through my hair and sat back down, opening a different backdoor I'd been working on all night.
Come on… show me something.
A few minutes passed. Then… a flicker.
I sat up.
An unsecured feed. Video access.
My pulse kicked.
CCTV lounge—Executive Tower B. Wolfe's upper-level staff lounge.
I clicked into the camera. Grainy, but clear enough. Two people were seated on a leather couch in the corner. A man and a woman.
I leaned forward.
Arthur Lowell. Chairman of the board.
And Katherine Wolfe.
Bingo.
The Lounge Feed – 07:08 p.m.
"…She's not breaking," Arthur said quietly. "Still denies everything."
"She's either incredibly naive or incredibly clever," Katherine replied.
He frowned. "Damien's still blocking any real disciplinary action."
"Then maybe he needs to see more."
Arthur looked up at her. "Are you sure she's guilty?…"
My eyes narrowed.
I recorded everything. Every word. Every glance. This was the opening I needed.
I muted the sound.
That was enough to know that she has planted more fake evidence against Eva.
I dove into the code, locating Katherine's latest planted email batch set to auto-send to the board's compliance team that afternoon.
She was getting smarter. The messages were embedded with advanced tracking traps—if I tampered with them, they'd know.
So I got smarter too.
I didn't delete them. I didn't even rewrite them completely.
Instead, I rerouted the message headers, subtly replacing the sender's IP and login path to mimic that of Cameron Hale, a real former employee fired six months ago for misconduct.
He already hated Wolfe Enterprises. He'd even made threats online.
Perfect scapegoat.
I let the content of the fake email remain the same—only the digital fingerprints now pointed to someone else.
I uploaded the edited metadata and set it loose.
If Katherine wanted a fire, I'd make sure it burned the right person.
After everything, I text Eva for a meet-up at bar.
7:42 p.m. – Bar on 6th and Belmore
Eva was already there when I walked in.
She sat near the back, away from the glass windows. Hair tied up, hoodie over her fitted work blouse. Trying not to look like herself. Smart girl.
She looked up when I slid into the booth across from her.
"You said it was urgent," she whispered.
"It is," I said, pulling out my phone. I tilted the screen so she could see the paused video: Katherine and Arthur, deep in conversation.
Her eyes widened. "That's… that's the chairman."
I nodded. "And Katherine, planning your destruction like it's a Tuesday lunch."
She covered her mouth. "So it really was her. All of it."
"Every planted email. Every whisper. Every fake document. I caught her trying to send another wave to the board today."
"Did you stop it?"
I smiled faintly. "I redirected it. They'll think it came from an old employee with a grudge."
Eva leaned back, hand over her chest. "I—I don't even know what to say."
"Then don't say anything," I said. "But you need to be careful now. Someone might realize the trail's been messed with. They'll come looking for who did it."
Her voice was barely a breath. "You risked everything to cover me."
"I didn't do it just for you," I said, sitting back. "They wronged my family too. This is personal."
She looked down. "Still… thank you."
I looked at her for a moment—really looked.
She didn't seem like a spy. She didn't even seem like someone ready for revenge anymore. Just someone tired of surviving lies.
"I need access, Eva," I said finally. "The kind that gets me to the server core. You owe me that much."
Her face tightened. "That could get me fired."
"You're already one foot out the door," I said calmly. "Might as well grab some justice on the way out."
She didn't speak. Just nodded slowly.
I reached across the table and slid her a small encrypted flash drive.
"Plug that into your terminal tomorrow. Thirty seconds. Then take it out."
"What'll it do?"
"Nothing you'll see. Everything I need."
She hesitated. "Luca…"
"Don't worry. I'm not stealing money," I said. Then, with a slight grin, "Not yet."
She actually smiled at that. A small one. Real.
But when she stood to leave, she paused beside me.
"Be careful," she said softly. "They don't just ruin reputations, Luca. They ruin lives."
"I know," I said, eyes on hers. "That's why we hit first."