Chapter 1 - THE TRAP OF ARROGANCE

The first sign that something was wrong was the laptop.

Alex Carter had left it on the kitchen counter.

Now it was sitting on his bed.

Open.

He stopped in the doorway of his apartment.

For several seconds, he didn't move.

Outside, freezing rain tapped against the windows of the twenty-third-floor apartment he had rented long before anyone used words like visionary or genius to describe him.

His keys were still in his hand.

The room looked normal.

No broken window.

No damaged lock.

No overturned furniture.

His new watch was still on the dresser.

The envelope containing nearly six thousand dollars in cash from a recent trip was untouched.

Whoever had entered hadn't come to steal.

Alex slowly reached into his coat and pulled out his phone.

He opened the security app.

CAMERA OFFLINE.

His pulse jumped.

He tried the hallway camera.

Offline.

Living room.

Offline.

Bedroom.

Offline.

All of them had stopped recording at 2:17 p.m.

Exactly thirty-one minutes earlier.

Alex backed into the hallway.

He didn't call out.

Didn't step farther inside.

Instead, he called building security.

A man answered.

“Mr. Carter?”

Alex frowned.

The guard knew his name before Alex had spoken.

“Yes.”

“We already checked your apartment.”

Alex's fingers tightened around the phone.

“Why?”

There was a pause.

Then the guard said, “Your company sent someone.”

“My company?”

“The people who bought it.”

Alex stared through the open doorway.

His laptop screen was glowing.

A single folder sat open.

ARCHIVE.

Alex's breathing stopped.

That folder wasn't stored on his computer.

It existed only on an encrypted external drive.

A drive Alex kept hidden inside a fireproof safe beneath the floorboards of his old office.

“Who came into my apartment?” Alex asked.

“I don't know, sir. Corporate security.”

“What did they want?”

Another pause.

Then the guard answered quietly.

“They asked about a silver hard drive.”

Alex's stomach dropped.

He hung up.

His phone immediately rang.

UNKNOWN CALLER.

He almost ignored it.

Then answered.

“Alex.”

He recognized the voice.

Victor Hale.

CEO of Meridian Global.

The man whose company had wired thirty-eight million dollars into Alex's accounts less than twenty-four hours earlier.

“Victor.”

“You sound nervous.”

“You sent someone into my home.”

Victor sighed.

“Let's not turn this into something dramatic.”

“You broke into my apartment.”

“Our agreement gives Meridian access to company property.”

“My apartment isn't company property.”

“No.”

Victor paused.

“But the drive is.”

Alex stared at the laptop.

“What drive?”

Silence.

Then Victor laughed softly.

“That's disappointing.”

Alex said nothing.

“You're a very smart young man,” Victor continued. “Don't start pretending to be stupid now.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Something that should have been transferred during acquisition.”

Alex's heartbeat became louder.

“Then call my attorneys.”

“I'd rather resolve it privately.”

“Why?”

Victor's voice changed.

Just slightly.

The polished executive tone disappeared.

“Because if lawyers become involved, Alex, tonight gets unnecessarily complicated.”

Alex looked down the hallway.

The elevator numbers were moving.

21.

22.

His floor was twenty-three.

“Where are you right now?” Alex asked.

Victor didn't answer.

The elevator reached 23.

Ding.

The doors opened.

A man stepped out.

Black coat.

Black gloves.

No umbrella despite the freezing rain.

He looked directly at Alex.

Victor spoke into the phone.

“Give him the drive.”

Alex's blood turned cold.

The man began walking toward him.

Alex didn't argue.

He ran.

He slammed through the emergency stairwell door as the man accelerated behind him.

Alex took the stairs three at a time.

Twenty-two.

Twenty-one.

Behind him—

BANG.

The stairwell door flew open.

Alex kept running.

His phone was still connected.

Victor's voice remained strangely calm.

“You're making a mistake.”

Alex hit the twentieth-floor landing.

“No,” Alex gasped.

He looked down the center of the stairwell.

Nineteen floors beneath him.

Then he looked upward.

Footsteps coming fast.

“I made the mistake yesterday.”

He ended the call.

At the eighteenth floor, Alex burst into the hallway and hammered the elevator button.

Nothing.

He heard the stairwell door opening above him.

Alex ran toward apartment 1812 and pounded on the door.

“Help!”

No answer.

1814.

Nothing.

Footsteps entered the hallway.

Alex looked toward the far end.

His pursuer appeared.

The man reached inside his coat.

Alex didn't wait to see what came out.

He grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall.

The man rushed him.

Alex pulled the pin.

WHOOSH.

White powder exploded across the hallway.

The man cursed, blinded.

Alex swung the extinguisher.

It struck the man's forearm.

Something metallic hit the carpet.

Not a gun.

A syringe.

Alex stared at it.

The man kicked the extinguisher away.

Alex slammed his shoulder into him.

They crashed against the wall.

Alex wasn't a fighter.

He knew that immediately.

The stranger was stronger.

Faster.

Trained.

A forearm crushed against Alex's throat.

“Where is the drive?”

Alex clawed at his arm.

The pressure increased.

“Tell me.”

“I don't… know what you're talking about.”

The man drove Alex harder against the wall.

“You made three backups.”

Alex froze.

The stranger noticed.

“There it is.”

His grip loosened slightly.

“Now we're being honest.”

Alex drove his knee upward.

The man doubled over.

Alex ran.

This time, apartment 1817 opened.

An elderly man stepped into the hallway.

“What the hell—”

“Call 911!”

Alex sprinted toward the opposite stairwell.

Behind him, the stranger stopped.

He wasn't going to attack Alex with a witness standing there.

Alex made it down fourteen floors before his legs began shaking.

Police sirens were already audible outside.

He finally stopped inside a locked maintenance room on the fourth floor.

His phone showed eleven missed calls.

Three from Victor.

Five from Meridian's legal department.

Two from his mother.

And one from Maya Chen.

Maya.

His cofounder.

Alex called her.

She answered immediately.

“Alex?”

“Maya, listen carefully.”

“What happened?”

“Somebody came after me.”

Silence.

Then:

“Where are you?”

“My apartment building.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Alex, leave. Right now.”

Something in her voice bothered him.

“Maya.”

“What?”

“How did they know about the backups?”

She stopped breathing.

Alex slowly straightened.

“Maya?”

“They shouldn't.”

“They knew there were three.”

Another silence.

Then Maya said something that frightened him more than the man with the syringe.

“Alex…”

Her voice had become a whisper.

“There were never supposed to be three.”

“What?”

“I made a fourth.”

Alex stared at the maintenance-room door.

“Why?”

“Because three months ago, Lattice found something inside Meridian's transaction network.”

“What did it find?”

Maya didn't answer immediately.

Then she said:

“Enough to put Victor Hale in prison for the rest of his life.”

Alex closed his eyes.

Now he understood.

Meridian hadn't paid thirty-eight million dollars because they wanted his software.

They had paid thirty-eight million dollars to own the evidence.

And somebody inside Meridian had just discovered—

they didn't own all of it.

Maya spoke again.

“Alex?”

“Yes?”

“You need to understand one more thing.”

“What?”

“The fourth copy disappeared this morning.”

Alex went completely still.

“Who took it?”

Maya's answer came quietly.

“Noah.”

Noah Briggs.

Their third cofounder.

Alex's best friend since college.

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