Chapter 5 - The Insider in the Tower
The quiet of the penthouse suddenly felt suffocating. I looked from Marcus to Noah, the weight of the realization crashing down like a physical blow.
"Inside this building?" I repeated.
Noah didn't answer immediately. His face had gone completely rigid, every muscle in his jaw locked. He turned slowly toward the private elevator foyer, where the indicator light above the door was currently glowing green.
Ding.
The elevator doors slid open with a soft, polite chime.
Stepping out into the private foyer wasn't an assassin, and it wasn't Arthur Vance. It was Elena Vance, Noah’s chief operating officer and the woman who ran the day-to-day operations of the Whitman Group's global tech division.
She looked immaculate in a cream-colored silk blouse and tailored trousers, holding a sleek tablet in one hand. But when she saw Noah, Marcus, and me standing together in the center of the living room, her composed expression didn't even flicker.
She just smiled.
"Well," Elena said smoothly, stepping past the private security threshold without an invitation. "I see you found our missing passenger, Noah. I told security she’d be easy to track if we just let her run far enough to feel safe."
Noah didn't move. He stood between Elena and where I was holding Lily, his broad shoulders tense beneath his shirt. "You authorized the flight flag, Elena? You used Whitman architecture to track an innocent civilian?"
"She isn't an innocent civilian, Noah," Elena said, her eyes shifting coldly toward me. "She’s the only thing standing between Whitman Group and complete financial liquidation. The Shelton Trust holds the core encryption patents that our entire AI infrastructure is built upon. Your father bought them legally, Noah—or so he thought. But the loophole Emily's father left behind gives her sole veto power over every server farm we own."
The world tilted on its axis. I looked at Noah, my heart hammering against my ribs.
May you like
"You didn't just happen to sit next to me on that plane," I whispered, the horror dawning on me like a rising tide. "Did you?"
Noah closed his eyes for a single, agonizing second, before looking back at me with a look of absolute devastation.
