Chapter 4 - THE CONFESSION IN THE PENTHOUSENora stared at him, half-appalled, half-fascinated.
"Your coffee," she said, her voice shaking slightly as Nathan guided her toward a leather armchair by the window, "would have been burnt to a crisp by now, Mr. Hale. And considering someone attempted to turn my Honda into a scrap metal sculpture last night, I think tardiness is a forgivable offense."
Dominic set his glass down on a marble side table with a sharp clink. He walked toward her, his strides long and deliberate, until he was standing right beside her chair. He looked down at her—at the white tape on her forehead, the sling supporting her arm, the defiant fire in her eyes.
"Nathan," Dominic said without looking back. "Leave us."
"Boss—"
"Now."
Nathan nodded once, turned on his heel, and disappeared back into the private elevator, sealing them in absolute privacy.
Dominic knelt down on one knee beside Nora’s chair. The proximity was staggering. Up close, he smelled of cedarwood, expensive espresso, and rain.
"A brake line," Dominic said softly, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous register that sounded like grinding stones. "Someone cut the hydraulic line on your car while it was parked in the office garage. The same garage that requires a high-level security clearance to enter. The same garage monitored by twenty-four-hour closed-circuit cameras."
Nora’s breath hitched. "Then you saw who did it."
"The footage from midnight to three a.m. has been wiped," Dominic said, his jaw tightening so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. "Every single frame. Erased by someone with master administrative credentials. Someone who sits on the executive board. Someone who knows the system better than the IT department."
Nora looked down at her lap, her fingers gripping the fabric of her trousers. She could keep hiding it. She could play dumb, pretend she was just an accountant who made a lucky guess. But looking into Dominic’s fierce, unyielding eyes, she realized the truth: secrecy was no longer a shield. It was a target on her back.
Slowly, deliberately, Nora used her right hand to reach inside the neckline of her hospital gown. She unpeeled a small, waterproof plastic pouch taped against her ribs and laid it on the marble table between them.
A sleek, black encrypted flash drive.
Dominic’s eyes flicked from the flash drive back to her face. "What is this?"
"Page sixty-three," Nora whispered. "Ashford Strategic Partners. Two million, six hundred thousand dollars diverted over fourteen months into shell accounts in the Caymans. No work orders. No deliverables. Just steady, quiet bleeding."
Dominic didn't touch the drive immediately. He just stared at it, his expression freezing into a mask of pure, glacial fury.
"Victor," Dominic said, not as a question, but as a death sentence.
"Victor," Nora confirmed. "He thought I was just a quiet girl who crunched numbers and stayed too late. He didn't realize I check the ledger twice."
Dominic slowly reached out, picking up the small piece of plastic. He stood up to his full height, his face dark as a gathering storm.
"He's been my right hand for twelve years," Dominic said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "He thought he could steal from me, and then he thought he could kill my best asset to cover his tracks."
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Dominic looked down at Nora, and for the first time, the cold corporate titan vanished, replaced by something ancient, primal, and terrifyingly protective.
"He made a mistake," Dominic murmured. "And we are going to audit him straight to hell."
