Chapter 4

Adrian Pov

The compliance floor of Blackwood Holdings smelled like recycled air and expensive paper.

I arrived twelve minutes early and was still made to wait. A receptionist with a headset and a polite, empty smile directed me to a glass-walled conference room on the twenty-third floor. The chairs were designed to look comfortable and feel temporary. I sat with my hands flat on the table and watched the city move below while two investigators reviewed folders that already carried my name on the tabs.

The older one spoke first. His badge read *Harlan*. “Mr. Cole. Thank you for coming in. This is a formal review of system access and transaction approvals linked to your credentials over the past fourteen months. You have the right to have representation present. Do you wish to continue without it?”

“Yes.”

The younger investigator, a woman named Alice slid a printed log across the table. Columns of timestamps, IP addresses, and approval codes filled the page. My employee ID appeared in the final authorization field of dozens of entries.

“These transfers total just over two point four million,” Harlan said. “All of them required a junior accounts signature at the final stage. That signature matches your login.”

I turned the page. The pattern was careful. Small enough, frequent enough, and always routed through the same subsidiary channels. “I didn’t authorize these.”

Alice’s pen tapped once against her notebook. “Your credentials did.”

“Credentials can be used by someone else.”

“Do you share your login information, Mr. Cole?”

The question landed exactly where it was meant to. I kept my voice level. “No.”

“Has anyone else had physical access to your devices or saved passwords?”

Nathan’s face rose in my mind—leaning over my shoulder at the kitchen table, borrowing my laptop when his battery died, the casual way he had sometimes reached for my phone. I had never written the password down. I had never needed to. He had watched me type it often enough.

“My former partner had access to the apartment,” I said. “Shared devices on occasion. Nothing more.”

Harlan made a note. “Name?”

“Nathan Reed.”

The two investigators exchanged a brief look I could not read. Alice typed something on her tablet. The silence that followed felt deliberate.

I leaned forward. “If you pull the full session data, you’ll see that several of these approvals happened while I was offline or in meetings that are timestamped on the building’s own calendar. I can give you those dates.”

“We already have them,” Harlan said. “They complicate the picture. They do not clear it.”

The rest of the interview followed the same shape. They asked the same questions in different orders. I answered without raising my voice. I did not apologize for things I had not done. Every time they returned to the volume of transactions under my ID, I repeated the same truth: I had not moved the money. Someone who knew my access had.

After forty minutes they closed the folders.

“You are not to discuss the contents of this review with other employees,” Alice said. “Your system access remains suspended. We may require a second interview. You will be notified.”

I stood. My legs felt steady. That was something.

“Am I being charged?”

“This is still an internal matter,” Harlan replied. “For now.”

The walk back through the open-plan floors felt longer than the walk in. A few people from the accounts department glanced up and then away. Word traveled faster than official notices. I kept my eyes forward and my expression blank until the elevator doors closed.

Outside, the morning air was cooler than the building’s controlled climate. I stood on the plaza for a moment and let the ordinary noise of traffic settle the residual shake in my hands. The black car pulled up to the curb without hurry. It was expensive, quiet, and completely out of place among the taxis and delivery vans.

The rear window lowered.

Alexander Blackwood looked at me the way people looked at problems they intended to solve permanently. Dark suit, no tie, expression carved from the same cold material as the glass towers around us. I had seen his face on company announcements and financial news feeds for years. In person the weight of him was different—controlled power that did not need to raise its voice.

“Adrian Cole,” he said. Not a question.

I did not move closer. “Yes.”

“Get in. We need to talk about what you did to my company.”

The rear door unlocked with a soft click. Behind me the Blackwood Holdings entrance continued to release employees into the ordinary day. In front of me the most powerful man in the building—recently stripped of that power—waited as if the outcome had already been decided.

I looked at the open door, then at the man who owned it.

The choice was not really a choice. Staying on the plaza meant waiting for the next official summons or the next set of investigators. Getting in meant stepping into a different kind of danger.

I walked to the car and got in.