Chapter 8 - The University Connection
The rain had cleared completely by late afternoon, leaving the city skyline washed in a sharp, golden autumn light. But inside the forty-second-floor office, the atmosphere was as cold as a server room.
Arthur stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out over the campus of the state university visible in the distance across the river.
“Who?” Arthur asked without turning around.
“Professor Alan Sterling,” I said, sliding a digital printout onto the glass desk between us. “Head of the Advanced Systems Engineering department. He was my academic advisor for four years. He was also the independent consultant who signed off on Apex Media’s technical compliance audit last year.”
Elena Rostova, leaning against the door counter, crossed her arms. “Sterling has been on Meridian’s advisory board for a decade. If he’s compromised, it means our entire academic pipeline—every recruit we bring in from the university—has been pre-screened for vulnerability.”
“Not vulnerability,” I corrected. “Complicity. Or at least, malleability.”
I thought back to my graduation morning—to Mom frantically trying to stop me from confronting Vanessa, whispering about how I shouldn't make a scene, how family matters stayed in the family. For years, Mom had hosted dinner parties where Professor Sterling was a guest of honor, praising Vanessa’s nonexistent marketing genius while telling me to keep my head down and focus on my homework.
It wasn't just maternal favoritism. It was an ecosystem.
“Sterling didn't just leak my thesis,” I said, the realization settling heavily in my chest. “He engineered the entire setup. He knew Vanessa was unstable, he knew she was desperate for cash to fund her lifestyle, and he used my relationship with her as the conduit to pipe my research to Richard without ever touching the files himself.”
Arthur turned away from the window, his expression grim. “And your mother? Does she know?”
I hesitated. The image of Mom weeping in the auditorium aisle, chasing after Vanessa while Dad walked out alone, flashed through my mind.
“Mom knew Vanessa was getting money from somewhere,” I said softly. “She always looked the other way because Vanessa was the one who 'needed help.' But whether she knew it was coming from Richard Vance through Professor Sterling... I don't know. Yet.”
Arthur walked over to his desk and picked up his phone. “Elena, freeze all joint research grants to the university's engineering department effective immediately. And have legal prepare a subpoena for Professor Sterling’s personal and professional accounts.”
“Done,” Elena said, tapping furiously on her tablet before turning toward the door. “I’ll coordinate with federal compliance before they wake up and scrub the local servers.”
As the door clicked shut behind her, Arthur looked across the desk at me.
“You haven’t mentioned your father,” he noted quietly. “He walked out of the auditorium alone. He didn't go with your mother and sister.”
“My dad spent thirty years working as a senior accountant for the municipal water board,” I said, looking down at my hands. “He spent his entire life playing by the rules, balancing every ledger to the exact penny, while watching Mom excuse every destructive thing Vanessa ever did. Today was the first time in his life he didn't clean up the mess.”
“Do you know where he went?”
I reached into my blazer pocket and pulled out my phone. There was a single unread text message from an unknown number, received ten minutes ago.
May you like
It was an address in the old industrial district near the river, accompanied by a single sentence: “Your mother is trying to cover for Sterling. Come before he deletes the hard drives.”
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