Chapter 2 - THE MIDNIGHT AUDIT
By Friday night, the fortieth floor was a ghost town of ticking clocks, distant city sirens, and the hum of high-end server racks.
Everyone had gone home. Everyone except Chloe Bennett, who sat cross-legged on the floor of the breakroom wearing a pair of oversized corporate-issue slippers, surrounded by empty coffee cups and financial ledgers dating back five years.
She hadn't just fixed the shipping contract; she had found a systematic leak. Every month, exactly ten thousand dollars was being siphoned out of the Rossy Corporation’s logistics account and funneled into an offshore account in the Cayman Islands.
It wasn't a random glitch. It was an inside job.
Click.
Chloe froze. The elevator bell hadn't rung, but the heavy fire-escape door at the end of the hall had just clicked shut.
She held her breath, sliding behind the industrial espresso machine.
Footsteps padded softly down the carpeted corridor. They weren't the heavy, purposeful strides of Matteo or the sharp, controlled steps of Lorenzo. These footsteps were light, stealthy, and desperate.
Chloe peeked around the stainless-steel corner.
It was Victor Vance, the head of internal compliance—the man Lorenzo trusted second only to Matteo.
Victor was standing by Lorenzo’s private office door. He wasn't trying to open it with a key. He was pressing a small, humming electronic device against the digital door lock, attempting to bypass the biometric scanner.
He’s planting something, Chloe realized, her heart hammering against her ribs. Or he’s stealing the master ledger.
She needed to run. She needed to call Matteo. But her phone was sitting right on the communal kitchen table, flashing with a low-battery warning.
She reached blindly behind her, her hand brushing against a heavy glass jar filled with Italian biscotti.
Clatter.
The jar slipped from her fingers, shattering against the tile floor with a sound like a small explosion.
Victor spun around, his hand flying inside his suit jacket. A silver pistol gleamed in the dim fluorescent light.
“Who’s there?” Victor hissed, creeping toward the breakroom.
Chloe scrambled backward, her slippers slipping on the ceramic shards. She grabbed a wooden broom from the corner just as Victor’s face appeared in the doorway.
“Well, well,” Victor smiled coldly, raising the weapon. “The new girl. Management really has low standards these days.”
“I’m just here for the dental plan!” Chloe squeaked, swinging the broom like a medieval lance.
The wooden handle caught Victor square in the chest, sending him stumbling backward. Chloe didn't wait to see if he recovered. She sprinted down the hallway toward Lorenzo’s office, threw herself against the heavy double doors, and slammed them shut, twisting the manual deadbolt just as Victor’s shoulder slammed against the exterior.
“Open the door, you little bitch!” Victor snarled from the other side, the sound of metal scraping against the lock echoing down the hall.
Chloe turned around, chest heaving, trapped inside the inner sanctum of the most dangerous man in Chicago.
And then, the desk lamp flickered on.
Lorenzo Rossy sat in his high-backed leather chair, watching her with a dark, unreadable expression. He had a glass of amber whiskey in his hand.
“You’re working late, Miss Bennett,” Lorenzo said calmly.
“Your compliance officer is trying to murder me,” Chloe gasped, pointing wildly at the door. “And he’s embezzling from your Cayman accounts!”
Lorenzo took a slow sip of his whiskey. “I know.”
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Chloe stared at him, her jaw dropping. “You... you know?”
“I’ve known for a month,” Lorenzo replied, standing up and walking slowly toward her, his shadow stretching across the polished stone. “I was waiting to see who was stupid enough to help him. It turns out, my new secretary is the only one brave—or clumsy—enough to catch him.”
