Chapter 40: Red Flags and Golden Rings

Katherine Brown wasn’t a woman who frightened easily. But as she stood by the window of her office on the fourteenth floor, clutching her phone and staring at the call log with that unknown number glowing back at her, a strange chill prickled down her spine. It wasn’t just a prank call. She knew it. She felt it in her bones.

"Access to surveillance footage, Katherine? Since when?"

The voice had been smooth, calm, eerily unhurried. The kind of tone someone uses when they’re already five steps ahead of you. The call had ended without further detail, and no matter how many times she tried calling back, the line stayed dead. Blocked. Gone.

She took a slow breath and pulled herself away from the window, forcing herself to walk back to her desk like her legs weren't jelly. The Tuesday evening in Los Angeles was humming with sunlight, but inside the sleek glass-walled office, everything felt just a shade too quiet.

Katherine sat down and opened her laptop. Her fingers hovered above the keyboard as she debated: should she tell Sebastian? Should she raise a security concern immediately? Or would that mean letting him in on something she didn’t fully understand herself?

No. Not yet.

Her gaze slid to the framed photo on her desk—not of anyone else, but a shot she had taken last summer in London: blue sky, her coffee cup, and her favorite heels. It reminded her that she had come this far not by panicking, but by solving things herself.

"Fine," she muttered, unlocking her encrypted chat and pinging a contact she hadn’t used since her days in London. Liam Roberts, cybersecurity specialist, friend, and the only man she trusted to dig where others wouldn’t.

Katherine: "Hey. Need a quiet favor. Surveillance logs. LA branch. Last 72 hrs."

Liam: "...Do I even want to know?"

Katherine: "Not really. Just tell me if someone accessed them without my credentials."

Liam: "Gimme 30 min."

She leaned back in her chair, eyes closed for just a moment. Her body was humming, her mind cycling through possibilities. Someone wanted her to know they were watching. That they had power. But why now?

Thirty minutes later, Liam's reply came in.

Liam: "You were right. Someone accessed the logs. Remote ping, routed through internal admin panel. Not your ID. Superuser access. They watched yesterday. Only floor 14."

Katherine's jaw clenched.

Katherine: "Can you trace it?"

Liam: "Working on it. But Kat… this wasn't some intern being nosy. This was clean. Professional."

Katherine: "I figured."

She stared at the screen for a long while after the message. Someone had accessed the surveillance. Someone with high-level clearance. Someone who had chosen her floor and her office.

Not a coincidence.

They were watching her. They wanted her to know. And they were bold enough to use superuser access—something only a handful of people even knew existed.

Her eyes flicked to the reflection in the dark screen of her monitor. Calm. Composed. But fire was building beneath the surface.

She stood up, adjusted the lapels of her blazer, and walked over to the mirror near the wardrobe, fixing her lipstick with a slow, practiced swipe. Her pulse had steadied now. She wasn’t spiraling — she was calculating.

If they wanted to play games, fine.

But whoever had poked the lioness clearly didn’t realize —

She’d built this jungle herself.

---

Wednesday afternoon blurred into golden hour, and the office floor of Mason Equity Group in LA hummed with its usual rhythm — keyboards clicking, the faint clatter of coffee mugs, and the occasional laughter seeping out of breakout rooms. Katherine Brown sat at the head of the long, modern conference table, her notes organized, expression calm, lipstick untouched despite the long day.

She wasn’t looking at the screen. She was watching him.

Sebastian Mason, in an ash-gray suit and no tie, was projected across the room via the glass wall behind her — not on a video call, but in person. He stood at the far end of the table, arms folded, nodding as one of the department leads finished a rundown on projected Q3 growth.

Katherine watched the subtle flex of his jaw, the way he tipped his head when he listened, how his gaze occasionally slid her way as if seeking silent confirmation — and maybe something more. Every now and then, he smiled. Genuinely. Softly.

It was the kind of smile that could cut your knees out from under you if you weren’t careful.

And that’s what unsettled her most.

He wasn’t distant. He wasn’t distracted. He wasn’t… guilty.

He was present.

“…and of course, we wouldn’t be anywhere near these numbers if not for Ms. Brown ’s clear leadership,” said Daniel from Strategy, glancing across the table.

Sebastian didn’t miss a beat.

“Agreed,” he said, eyes flicking to her. “The LA division’s been under tighter scrutiny than any of our branches this quarter, and Katherine’s delivered under pressure like only a Brown can. Efficient. Disciplined. Relentless.”

There was a polite round of chuckles — most of them real.

Sebastian stepped closer, placing both hands on the table’s edge. “Let’s be clear — the way this office has pivoted in the past three weeks has set a new internal benchmark. And it started from the top. So thank you, Katherine.”

There it was again. That effortless charm. That respect. That warmth.

She blinked, then nodded with a small smile. “Doing my job.”

“Better than that,” he added — casually, but firmly.

The meeting wrapped soon after, with polite chatter and the slow rustle of people gathering their laptops. Sebastian held back, waiting by the glass doors as the last of them filtered out. Katherine, professional mask still firmly in place, took her time gathering her things.

Her body was tense beneath the silk blouse. Her fingers trembled slightly as she closed her notepad — not from fear, but from confusion.

He had to know.

Didn’t he?

The call. The access. The archive.

Unless… unless he didn’t.

Unless this wasn’t one of Sebastian Mason’s layered chess games. Unless this wasn’t another test or subtle play for control. Unless someone else had moved a piece — and she was assuming the king’s hands had touched the board.

He pushed off the wall and approached.

“I booked dinner,” he said. “It’s been a hell of a week already. I thought we’d take a pause. Reset.”

She raised a brow. “A dinner?”

His mouth tilted. “Unless you're going to fire me for suggesting it.”

She huffed a quiet laugh. “I haven’t ruled it out.”

“Come on, Katherine,” he said, voice lower now. “You haven’t smiled properly since Sunday. You’ve been excellent, but that edge is getting sharper.” He studied her. “You need to breathe.”

You need to breathe.

She almost snapped at him. Almost said, Maybe I’d breathe better if someone wasn’t watching me through a camera feed. But she didn’t. Because what if it wasn’t him?

What if someone else had done it?

And Sebastian — infuriating, magnetic, unreadable Sebastian — was just trying to be decent?

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

He gave her a long look — not the kind that dissected her, but the kind that wrapped around her like a coat. Protective. Familiar. Intimate in ways she didn’t know how to label anymore.

And for a moment, Katherine felt something she hadn’t expected.

Doubt.

Not in herself — but in her theory.

If he was acting, it was the performance of a lifetime. But if he wasn’t…

…then who the hell was?

“Alright,” he said, straightening. “Let me know. I’ll be at the penthouse if you need anything.”

He left with a parting nod — no pressure, no games. Just a man who looked like he cared.

When the door clicked shut, Katherine slowly sat back down, her heart thudding.

Either he was a master manipulator — or he was truly in the dark.

And both possibilities were equally terrifying.

---

The office had thinned out. Shadows stretched long across the floors, broken only by the golden hue of the sun dipping behind the downtown skyline. Katherine sat at her desk, eyes fixed on a spreadsheet she hadn’t touched in ten minutes. Her brain was doing math, yes—but not the kind Excel could track.

Behind the glass wall, the familiar sound of Sebastian’s voice still drifted through the quiet. He was talking to someone from the tech team, low and focused, then wrapped it up with a “Thanks. Go home. Tomorrow, 8 sharp.”

She didn’t look up.

She felt him before she saw him.

The soft rhythm of his shoes on the hardwood floor, the deliberate way he moved through space — never rushing, always precise. Controlled.

He leaned a shoulder against her doorframe, arms folded, tie gone, top button undone. That studied casualness he wore like cologne.

“Still working?” he asked.

She typed something — anything — just to have an excuse to keep her eyes on the screen. “There’s always more.”

A beat.

Then his voice, lighter. “You used to tease me for that exact line.”

“I’ve matured,” she replied coolly, clicking to a new tab.

He smiled, slow and easy. “Have you? I miss the teasing.”

She finally looked up, her expression unreadable. “Do you?”

He held her gaze a second too long. “Yes.”

There was a silence. Not awkward. Just… different. The air wasn’t tense, but it wasn’t soft either. It was tight. Pulled between them like silk stretched too far across a frame.

She stood, reaching for her blazer. “I have reports to finalize.”

“You don’t.”

“I do,” she said, walking around the desk and brushing past him without meeting his eyes. “And even if I didn’t, I’d still rather —”

She stopped herself.

Sebastian turned to face her fully, voice dipped lower. “Rather what?”

She looked at him now. Really looked.

There was something in her eyes he hadn’t seen since their London days — distance. Not cold, exactly. Just guarded.

Like he was being kept on the other side of a line he didn’t know she’d drawn.

“You tell me,” she said, brushing an invisible crease off her sleeve.

His eyes narrowed a touch. “Alright,” he said slowly. “Did I do something?”

Her breath caught.

Yes.

Maybe.

I don’t know.

She gave him nothing. “I’m just tired.”

“You’ve been tired before. This is different.”

“Sebastian…” she warned gently.

He raised both hands in mock surrender, but didn’t back away. “Okay. Fine. I’ll stop.”

She nodded once, and moved to gather her things. The moment felt like it should end there — should dissolve like so many of their unresolved moments had.

But it didn’t.

Instead, he lingered. Quiet. Watching her in a way that wasn’t quite loving, and wasn’t quite suspicious. Just aware.

Finally, she broke the silence. “You should head out.”

“I will,” he said. “Eventually.”

“Go enjoy the penthouse. Have a drink. Call your assistant. Fire someone.”

He gave a half-smile at that. “Tempting. But tonight I’d rather not.”

She slung her bag over her shoulder and reached for the office lights, but paused.

“You’re not usually this present,” she said, keeping her back to him.

Sebastian stepped into the room, but kept a respectful distance.

“Maybe I’m just trying to remind you,” he said quietly.

“Of what?”

“Who I am. Who we are. Before all the static.”

She turned slowly.

“Static?”

“Noise. Distractions. Doubt.”

Her pulse ticked at her throat. “And what if the static’s trying to tell me something?”

He tilted his head slightly, as if weighing that. Then —nothing.

Silence again.

But not for long.

Because just as she moved to step past him, he reached out — lightly — fingers brushing her wrist. Not a grab. Not a demand. Just contact.

And in that moment, the mood shifted entirely.

She met his gaze. Saw the storm behind his eyes.

He didn’t smile this time.

He didn’t flirt.

He asked, barely above a whisper:

“Who called you?”

Everything stilled.

Even the hum of the city outside seemed to vanish.

Her heart hitched.

She said nothing.

And that silence — that sharp, vibrating silence — was the end of everything soft between them.

---