Chapter 3 - THE FOLDER IN THE TRASH
The lights stayed on.
The screens did not.
Every tablet connected to the Novaris network lost its display. The wall monitor died. The conference phone reset with a sharp electronic chirp.
Andrew Bell shot to his feet.
“That’s not possible.”
Elias looked at Serena.
“Network isolation?”
She checked her phone.
“No. My outside line still works.”
Maya’s stomach tightened.
She knew enough about Novaris infrastructure to understand what that meant.
“This is local,” she said.
Everyone looked at her.
She pointed toward the executive network panel built into the wall cabinet.
“Someone killed this floor.”
Andrew frowned. “How would you know?”
“My internship is infrastructure security.”
Victor laughed once. “Of course it is.”
Elias ignored him.
“Can you tell whether data is being deleted?”
Maya hesitated. “Not from here.”
“Then go where you can.”
Graham stepped between her and the door.
“No one leaves until we understand what’s happening.”
Elias stood.
At seventy-six, he was shorter than Graham.
He still made the CEO move.
“Do not block that door.”
Graham held his gaze for two long seconds, then stepped aside.
Maya hurried into the hall.
Elias followed.
So did Serena.
The executive floor had changed in less than five minutes. Assistants stood beside dead computers. Phones rang without internal directories. Two security guards were speaking urgently into radios that seemed to answer no one.
Maya headed for the service corridor.
“Network closet is this way.”
“How do you know?” Serena asked.
Maya gave a nervous half smile.
“Interns learn where everything is because nobody wants to learn where anything is.”
They reached the narrow corridor behind the executive kitchen.
Smoke rolled from beneath a gray metal door.
Maya stopped.
“That’s records storage.”
Elias’s face changed.
“Open it.”
Serena grabbed his arm. “Not if there’s fire.”
Elias pointed to the ceiling.
“No alarm.”
Then, as if the building had heard him, the alarm screamed.
Red strobes flashed.
Employees flooded toward the stairwells.
The storage-room door opened from the inside.
A man in a white shirt rushed out carrying nothing.
Maya recognized him.
“Bryce?”
Bryce Nolan.
Victor Crane’s chief of staff.
He looked at them once, then ran.
“Stop!” Serena shouted.
Bryce slammed through the emergency stairwell door.
Elias moved after him.
Maya caught his sleeve.
“Mr. Ward, no.”
He looked down at her hand.
She let go immediately.
“You’re seventy-six,” she said. “He’s thirty.”
Elias raised an eyebrow.
“Rude, but fair.”
Serena almost laughed despite the alarm.
Maya grabbed the wall extinguisher.
“Call security.”
“We have,” Serena said. “They’re not answering.”
Maya opened the storage room just enough to see inside.
Smoke poured out, but the fire was small and contained inside a steel shredding bin.
“Paper fire.”
She pulled the pin and emptied foam into the bin.
Elias stood in the doorway, coughing.
“Anything salvageable?”
“Give it a second.”
When the smoke cleared, the floor was covered in half-burned pages.
Most were payroll records and printouts.
Then Elias bent carefully and picked up one blackened sheet by the corner.
Serena photographed it before he moved it.
Across the top:
BLACKBIRD RETENTION MATRIX — Q3.
Below were names.
Beside each name, short notes.
LIKELY TO REPORT.
FAMILY DEPENDENCY: HIGH.
MORTGAGE EXPOSURE.
VISA STATUS.
DIVORCE PENDING.
MEDICAL DEBT.
Maya felt cold.
“These aren’t performance notes.”
“No,” Elias said. “They’re pressure points.”
Serena crouched beside another page.
“This one has authorization initials.”
“Whose?”
She wiped soot from the bottom corner.
V.C.
Victor Crane.
A voice behind them said, “You need to evacuate.”
Two security officers stood in the hall.
The taller one did not look at the smoke.
He looked at the paper in Elias’s hand.
Elias noticed.
“Secure this room.”
The officer did not move.
“That order has to come from Mr. Voss.”
Serena stared at him. “Mr. Ward chairs the voting trust.”
“Our chain of command comes through the CEO.”
Elias took out his phone.
“Not anymore.”
He made a call.
“Frank, activate the external security contract.”
Pause.
“Yes. Now.”
The officer’s radio crackled.
His face changed as a new voice came over it.
Elias handed the burned page to Serena.
“Bag everything.”
Then Maya saw a name halfway down the sheet.
She stopped breathing.
JAMES REED.
Her father.
Beside his name were three words:
LAKEVIEW — CONTAINED ASSET.
Maya grabbed the page.
“No.”
Elias looked at her.
“You know him.”
“That’s my dad.”
The alarm kept screaming.
Maya stared at the words beside her father’s name.
Her father had told her he left Novaris six years ago because the company downsized.
He had never said anything about Lakeview.
He had never said anything about Blackbird.
And he had definitely never said he was an asset.
Her phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One message.
IF YOU’RE WITH ELIAS WARD, DO NOT GO HOME.
A second message appeared before she could move.
May you like
THEY KNOW WHO YOUR FATHER IS.
