Chapter 28- Run!

The next morning, I woke to a pounding headache and a heart racing from restless dreams. The photo from last night replayed in my mind on a loop. Someone had taken a picture of me and Nany, then left it in my desk drawer. It was a message.

A threat.

I took no chances this time. I left my personal phone at home, packed Nany's burner in my purse, and backed up Kevin's flash drive contents to a private cloud folder I had created overnight. Every precaution felt like a drop in the ocean, but I couldn’t afford any slip-ups. Not now.

When I reached the office, the tension was so thick it nearly choked me. People looked away when I passed, and Samantha was already at her desk, humming cheerfully. She barely glanced at me.

I ignored her. But something was off.

Wait—wasn’t Samantha fired?

The question nagged at me. I remembered the chaos and fallout from the previous weeks. She had been escorted out by HR after trying to sabotage my work. So why was she back now like nothing had happened?

Before I could confront her, I overheard another employee whispering near the copier. “HR said she’s here temporarily, filling in due to a shortage. Just for a few days.”

Temporary or not, her presence left a bitter taste in my mouth.

As soon as I logged into my system, I opened the project evaluation files and pretended to be busy. But in truth, I was watching. Watching for any odd system behavior, watching for anything out of place.

And it didn’t take long.

A new message popped up, cleverly disguised as a calendar notification.

*"Still digging? You’re braver than you look, Lily."

Same no-sender tag. Same vanishing act within seconds.

I stared at the blank screen. Whoever this was had real access. They weren’t just snooping—they were embedded.

I needed to make a move.

At lunch, I caught Nany just outside the gate. We didn't talk on company property anymore.

"They're escalating," I whispered, showing her the calendar screenshot.

She exhaled slowly. "Then we escalate, too. My friend ran a trace on the IP connected to Kevin’s flash drive logs. Guess what? The AtlasPhoenix account was accessed from inside this building... multiple times."

"From which floor?"

"Eighth. Same as Kevin. But also from the Executive floor. Once."

I narrowed my eyes. "Which means someone above Kevin is involved."

"Exactly. And not just involved. Coordinating."

We exchanged a tense look. The list of suspects was narrowing.

Back at the office, I found Samantha hovering over my desk.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

She smiled. "Just making sure you submitted Mr. William’s quarterly memos to finance. You know he gets very upset if they’re late."

"I already did."

"Are you sure? Because I just came from finance. They say nothing’s been logged yet."

I turned back to my screen, pulled up the submission log, and showed her the timestamp.

"Maybe you should be more careful when checking."

She gave me a sugary smile and walked off, but I didn’t miss the venom in her eyes.

Later that day, I received an anonymous email on my personal backup address—one I had used only once for a document test weeks ago.

*"You’re not safe at home either."

Attached was a picture of my apartment door. My actual door.

The subject line simply read: *"RUN."

My stomach dropped. I checked the image metadata. It had been taken at 3:12 a.m. That same morning.

I stood abruptly, knocked once on William’s office door, and walked in without waiting.

He was on a call. He looked annoyed.

I dropped the printed photo onto his desk.

"Someone took this at 3 a.m. Outside my apartment. They’ve been inside your network. They’ve been watching me. And now they’re threatening me."

He ended the call mid-sentence. Picked up the photo. Said nothing.

"You want me to play secretary? Fine. You want me to pretend nothing’s going on? I can’t. Not when someone is threatening me at my home."

"Why bring this to me?" he asked quietly.

I blinked. "Because I have no one else who can fix it. Because this company—your company—is the one that put me in danger."

William stood, walked to the cabinet, and pulled out a folder.

"This isn’t the first incident," he said.

He handed it over. Inside were copies of several complaints. All anonymous threats. Three of them directed toward another former employee.

"Selena," I whispered.

William’s face hardened.

"She received similar warnings before she died. We thought it was a disgruntled client. But maybe we were wrong."

"So you knew?"

He looked at me. "I suspected. But suspicion without proof is air. You’re the only one who’s gotten close to actual evidence."

My throat felt dry. "You’re saying you want me to keep digging?"

"I’m saying... be careful."

That night, I didn’t go home. I stayed at a small hotel in the next district, paying in cash. I left my curtains drawn and kept the lights dim. If they were watching, I wanted them to lose the trail.

I reviewed the flash drive again.

There was one folder I hadn’t opened yet.

*"PHX_DOCS_BACKUP.zip"

It required a password. I tried the obvious: Selena. VisionTech. Lily. Phoenix. Nothing worked.

I sent it to Nany.

Within ten minutes, she messaged back: *"Try ‘SPARROW1127’."

It worked.

Inside was a spreadsheet. Names. Dates. Financial codes. Offshore accounts.

I sat there for nearly two hours decoding each line, cross-referencing with archived employee files.

One name repeated more than once:

An anonymous executive alias – “ML”

The initials rang faintly. But nothing definitive yet.

I bookmarked the file, and backed everything up again. This was too fragile. Too dangerous. And I didn’t want to jump to conclusions.

Especially not without undeniable proof.

For now, the shadows were shifting. And I had to stay in the dark a little longer.