Semua Bab The Wrong Bed: Bab 21 - Bab 30

Freddie didn't go back to the office straight away.He had been there all night and most of the morning and the thought of walking back through those doors and sitting behind that desk felt like something his body wasn't willing to do right now. Not today. Not with his name still trending on financial news sites and four board members waiting for a resolution he didn't have and an investigator who had stopped picking up his phone.He walked instead.No direction. No destination. Just the city and his feet and the cold air that had a way of making everything feel slightly more real than he wanted it to feel right now.New York didn't care.That was the thing he had always appreciated about this city and the thing that felt like a wound this morning. It just kept going. Kept moving. Kept being itself with complete indifference to whatever any one person was carrying through it.He walked for forty minutes before he ended up somewhere he hadn't consciously decided to go.His father's old

Freddie didn't pick up the call.He watched how Marcos's name displayed on the screen until it stopped ringing. Then he put it face down to the table and looked at his notepad.Marcos De Luca. Calling him at ten thirty at night.He stood still.Then his phone rang.A text."Pick up Freddie. We need to talk."He stared at it.Another one came through thirty seconds later."Or don't. I'll come to you instead."He put the phone down.---The knock came forty minutes later.Three sharp confident raps on his front door. Not hesitant. Not apologetic. The knock of a man who had somewhere to be and had decided this was it.Freddie walked to the door.Stood on his side of it."Who is it," he said. Like he didn't already know."You know who it is." Marcos's voice through the door was smooth. Completely unbothered. "Open up Freddie. I just want to talk.""We have nothing to talk about.""I disagree." A pause. "I know you've had quite a day. Thought you might need some company."Something tighten

Lina woke up slowly.The kind of slow that happened when your body was done sleeping but your mind hadn't caught up yet. That grey space between rest and reality, where everything felt distant and soft for just a few seconds before the weight of everything came back.It always came back.She lay still for a moment. Priya's blanket is still around her. The apartment quiet. Morning light pushing through the curtains in thin pale lines.She reached for her phone.Not for any particular reason. Just the automatic morning habit of it. Check the time. Check messages. The ordinary small ritual of waking up that her hands did before her brain fully switched on.The time was seven fourteen.She had three messages from Priya. She smiled slightly at that. Typical.She was about to put the phone down when something caught her eye.A notification.Not a message. A news alert. The kind that pushed through from one of the financial news apps she had downloaded months ago when she started working alo

Karthy didn't rush.She never did. Rushing was for people who hadn't planned properly. Who left things to the last minute and then scrambled to catch up.She had been planning this particular move for three weeks.She arrived at the Caldwell building at nine fifteen.Not through the main entrance. She knew better than that. The main entrance had cameras and a security desk and people who would remember a face. She came through the side entrance on the lower floor. The one that cycled through on a forty minute rotation and had a blind spot in the coverage that she had identified on her very first visit eight weeks ago.She was in the elevator before anyone had time to notice her.Twenty eighth floor.The board members' private offices.She had appointments with two of them. Not under her real name. Under the name of a corporate consultant whose credentials she had built carefully over the past month. Clean. Professional. Verifiable enough to get through a basic check without raising fl

Freddie wasn't expecting the knock.He had been at his kitchen table for most of the morning. Notepad. Cold coffee. The same circling thoughts that kept finding new angles and hitting the same walls. He had called Daniel twice already and gotten the same answer both times, still working on it, give me a little more time.So when the knock came at eleven forty three he wasn't expecting it to be Daniel.But it was.Daniel Reeves stood in his doorway in his coat with a folder tucked under his arm and an expression on his face that Freddie had only seen twice in eleven years of working together. The expression of a man who had found something he wished he hadn't."You'd better let me in," Daniel said.Freddie stepped back.Daniel sat at the kitchen table.Didn't take his coat off. Didn't accept the coffee Freddie offered. Just put the folder on the table between them and kept both hands flat on top of it for a moment like he was deciding one last time how to do this."The keycard records