Chapter 4 - Someone Broke Into My Apartment Looking for a Flash Drive I’d Never Seen
I did not go home that night.
Not because Leo ordered me not to.
Because when the police asked whether I had somewhere secure to stay, I realized I no longer knew what secure meant.
Rebecca, my closest friend from college, lived forty minutes away with two toddlers and a husband who traveled for work.
Bringing danger to her door was not an option.
A hotel could be found.
Ben needed medical observation.
I had exactly one realistic choice.
Leo rented an entire furnished penthouse on the twenty-sixth floor of a residential tower downtown.
I discovered later that “rented” meant his company owned the building.
I was furious.
He seemed prepared for that.
“It has independent security.”
“Independent from whom?”
“From your employer.”
“Not from you.”
“No.”
I folded my arms.
“That’s convenient.”
“Norah, if you want a different location, choose one.”
No manipulation.
No guilt.
Just options.
I hated how difficult that made him to resist.
I stayed.
At 2:14 the next morning, my apartment alarm went off.
The police called me.
Someone had entered through a rear window.
They took nothing expensive.
Television untouched.
Laptop untouched.
Jewelry untouched.
My desk drawers were emptied.
Kitchen cabinets opened.
Mattress cut along one seam.
They were searching for something.
I stood inside the penthouse living room wearing borrowed sweatpants while Leo listened to the officer on speakerphone.
“Did they say what?”
“No.”
“Any idea?”
“No.”
The officer asked whether I owned sensitive work material.
My stomach tightened.
“I have reports on my work laptop.”
“Physical copies?”
“A few.”
“External drives?”
“No.”
Across the room, Leo looked at me.
“What?”
He waited until the call ended.
“Think.”
“I am thinking.”
“Has Gregory ever asked whether you brought work home?”
“Everyone does.”
“Specifically.”
I remembered.
Three months earlier.
Gregory had stopped at my desk while I was copying quarter-end reconciliation files.
“You backing up the kingdom?”
I told him I kept personal copies because Apex’s system crashed constantly.
He asked if I used cloud storage.
I told him no.
Then he joked:
“Old-school flash drives?”
I had said yes.
But that was before my last laptop was replaced.
“I used to.”
“Where are they?”
“Probably in a drawer.”
“At your apartment?”
“Yes.”
My skin went cold.
“Do any contain vendor records?”
“Maybe.”
Leo swore quietly.
I stared at him.
“That’s why they broke in.”
“Possibly.”
“Gregory thinks I have something.”
“Or someone above Gregory does.”
The distinction mattered.
Gregory was a predator.
But the missing money was too large for one regional manager.
Leo had suspected CFO Avery Cole before he ever met me.
“Tell me everything.”
He looked toward the windows.
“It’s four in the morning.”
“Then talk quickly.”
For the next hour, Leo finally explained why he had been outside Apex.
Marchetti Holdings owned legitimate port leases used by several shipping companies, including Apex.
Six months earlier, customs seizures began occurring disproportionately on containers passing through Marchetti-controlled terminals.
Illegal pharmaceuticals.
Counterfeit medical devices.
Unregistered weapons components.
Someone was routing contraband through legitimate shipments, then leaving enough evidence to point toward Leo’s businesses.
“If authorities shut your docks down…”
“Someone acquires them cheaply.”
“Apex?”
“We don’t know.”
“Who benefits?”
“Several groups.”
Including a rival criminal organization led by Matteo Rinaldi.
There it was.
The part Leo had avoided saying.
I sat opposite him.
“Are you mafia?”
He looked almost tired.
“That's not a job title.”
“Leo.”
“My family has done illegal things.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
No excuses.
“What things?”
“Things I’m not asking you to approve.”
My stomach tightened.
“Violence?”
“Yes.”
The room went silent.
I stood.
“I need air.”
He didn’t stop me.
The balcony door opened onto freezing wind.
I gripped the railing.
A minute later Leo stepped outside but stayed several feet away.
“You should be afraid of me,” he said.
I laughed bitterly.
“Helpful.”
“But not because Gregory is.”
I turned.
“What does that mean?”
“Gregory fears consequences.”
“And I should fear?”
“The fact that my world harms people who never asked to enter it.”
“Like me?”
“Yes.”
His honesty was infuriating.
I looked toward the city.
“Why help me?”
“At first?”
“Yes.”
“You were an employee standing near an investigation.”
“And later?”
He didn't answer.
That answer frightened me more.
My phone buzzed.
Police.
They had found something in my apartment.
A flash drive.
Not mine.
It had been taped beneath the underside of my desk.
Inside were encrypted files.
The timestamp showed it had been placed there seven months earlier.
Before Leo and I met.
Before I found the missing money.
Before Gregory’s behavior became aggressive.
Someone had hidden evidence in my apartment while I was at work.
And the only person from Apex who had ever been inside my home was Gregory.
He attended a small employee dinner I hosted after Ben’s accident.
I sat down slowly.
“He planted it.”
“Maybe.”
“Stop with maybe.”
Leo’s phone rang.
He listened.
Then his face changed.
“What?”
He lowered the phone.
“The encryption key uses Ben’s hospital admission date.”
My blood went cold.
That was not random.
Whoever created the drive wanted someone connected to me to open it.
Or wanted police to believe I had created it.
Leo looked toward the dark skyline.
“Norah.”
“Yes?”
“I think Gregory has been preparing to blame you for this scheme for months.”
I felt sick.
“And the harassment?”
Leo’s eyes hardened.
“Maybe that wasn't separate.”
The idea was almost worse than the touching itself.
Gregory had not only wanted power over me.
He may have been trying to make me unstable.
Afraid.
Distracted.
Easy to discredit.
And if I ever discovered the money trail, the evidence hidden in my apartment would turn me from whistleblower into suspect.
I looked at Leo.
“What’s on the drive?”
“We won't know until investigators decrypt it.”
“They?”
“I already contacted a federal task force.”
I stared at him.
“You called federal agents?”
“Yes.”
“A mafia boss called federal agents.”
One corner of his mouth moved.
“I told you. It's not a job title.”
Despite myself, I almost smiled.
Then his phone buzzed again.
He looked down.
The almost-smile vanished.
“What?”
He handed me the screen.
A message from an unknown sender.
One sentence.
SHE SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE DRINK.
Underneath was a photograph from three weeks earlier.
Gregory and me.
Inside his office.
May you like
Taken through the glass.
Whoever was threatening me had been watching long before I realized I was in danger.
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