bChapter /bb118 /b

The rm pierced the quiet like a p.

Sutton jolted, blinking hard as the sound cut back to the here and now with brutal rity.

the thick fog in her head. The noise wasn’t deafening, but it was sharp and urgent. It snapped her

Saved by the bell.

She looked over Luca’s shoulder toward her

rworkstati

the red light shing on the security panel.

“Shit,” she muttered.

Luca stood quickly, already alert, already all business again. But when he turned to look at her, there was something softer lingering in his eyes. Something that she had never seen in him before.

“You okay?” he asked.

Sutton nodded, even though her body ached and her thighs still felt shaky. “Yeah. Just… give me a second.”

She pulled her dress down as best she could and stood slowly, ignoring the dull ache that followed. Her underwear was gone. Didn’t matter. Her limbs were jelly, her head still going over everything that had passed between them. She moved toward her desk and silenced the rm.

The screen lit up.

System breach alert.

Her heart stuttered.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she

breath

“What is it?” Luca asked, already moving in beside her.

She didn’t answer right away. Her fingers were flying across the keyboard now, checking logs, cross–referencing data, scanning for the entry point.

“It’s not a breach,” she said ifinall /i

“It’s an internal trigger I set up without anyone knowing to monitor tampering attempts on the server.” Her jaw tightened. “Someone just tried to wipe a backup file connected to Kingston.”

Luca’s expression hardened. “From inside the building?”

Sutton nodded once. “Yeah.

From a secured login.”

His voice dropped. “Nicoleb?/bb” /b

“I don’t k know yet. But it wouldn’t surprise me… Like iyou /isaid, we need proof and I’m going to get that proof. That’s why I set up the trigger.” She nced up at him. He didn’t expect her to do it without telling him. “But at a guess, we are going to get answers faster than I thought. Bold.”

“I didn’t want to keep secrets,” she said, “but I couldn’t risk her getting away with it. I also didn’t want anyone to hear I was doing it.”

Luca didn’t argue. He didn’t get upset. He just stood there, jaw clenched, staring at the monitor. “If it is Nicole, I have to say this has to be very upsetting. She has been with me for years, but there is ino /iing back from this.”

“Right now, I need to trace the IP and pull the ess log,” Sutton said, already sliding into her chair. “You might want to lock down executive–level credentials while I do. Maybe lock everyone out of the system, including the development team. Just allow us to have control. If everyone’s blocked /bbout/b, Nicole won’t get suspicious.”

bLuca /bnodded slowly, then looked at her… Sutton flushed. She knew how she looked, hair mussed, lips still pink, iher /iskin still glowing bfrom /bbeverything /bbthat /bhad happened minutes ago.

He hesitated.

“Sutton.”

She didn’t stop typing.

“I meant what I said. About marrying)

She paused, hands hovering over the keyboard. Her chest ached, full and tight.

“I heard you,” she said quietly. “But right now, we’ve got other things to worry about. Get working, boss.”

Luca nodded and moved to one of the other stations.

Sutton’s fingers flew across the keyboard, getting to work.

The world narrowed to code, to backdoors, to the need to solve this puzzle. Soon, there was no trace of emotion left on her face. Just focus.

Luca went to work doing his job. It didn’t take long.

“System is locked down,” he confirmed behind her, reading over her shoulder. “Only you and me have ess right nowi./ii” /i

“Good,” she muttered, already rerouting the logs.

Lines of code scrolled fast. She bypassed their internal audit tools, tapping straight into the raw feeds. No interfaces. No Ul. Just code.

She was done being subtle.

The trigger she’d embedded had worked… someone had tried to delete backup files tied to Kingston’s contract. They’d failed. But that didn’t matter now. What mattered was who.

Sutton cracked open the internal IP logs and copied the identifier. Then she opened a separate terminal.

“You’re hacking the cameras?” Luca asked. “Fuck, Sutton. I’m d you’re on my team.”

She turned to grin at him before turning back to herputer. “I’m cross–referencing badge data with security footage,” she said, not looking away. “They logged in from the third floor east end of the building. We’re going to see exactly who was in that room.”

She typed fast, tracing the IP addres

s of

terminal used.

It pinged. She rerouted.

And the feed opened.

The footage flickered, then yed. Grainy ck and white, time–stamped, just past 3:12 a.m.

Sutton leaned in. There she was, Nicole. Just as she had thought. But she wasn’t alone.

Sutton couldn’t see who the person was beside her. Sutton could tell the person was a man, but he was wearing a hoodie. His face wasn’t visible, but the security badge he had used to get into the building shed on her second screen.

Sutton froze. Then looked back at the man. No, it wasn’t him. This man wasrger.

“Shit,” she whispered. “He used Jake’s b

Luca’s jaw tightened. “That’s not Jake.”

badge.”

“I know this man is a lotrger than Jake Sutton agreed. They watched as Nicole handed something to the man…a drive? A phoneb? /bbIt /bbwas /bbquick/bb. /b

b“/bHe’s doing the actual deletion,” Sutton said. “She’s just… standing there. Watching.”

Luca was silent for a long beat.

“She’s not just trying to sabotage Kingston,” Sutton said, her voice low. “She’s trying to burn the wholepany down. Just to get brid /bbof /bmeb./b”

He didn’t argue.

He knew.

b“/bCan you trace the keystrokes?” he asked finally.

“I already did.” Sutton pulled up another terminal. “I installed a keylogger in the sandbox after thest attempt. Every keystroke on that terminal bis /bbbeing /brecorded. Everymand, every deletion, every fucking typo. I’ve got it all.”

She copied the keystroke data and matched it to the timestamp.

“There,” she pointed. “You see that string? That’s the script that wipes the Kingston cloud backups. But I blocked the second stage. So it failed. bAnd /bnow we’ve got the full attempt.”

Luca stared at the screen. Then at her.

“This is everything we need,i” /ishe said. “Proof. Intent. Physical ess. Complicity. What they don’t know, I have already copied Kingston files under another file name on iour /iservers, so if this works, it’s only going to take me tomorrow to fix their system.”

“When did you do that?”

Sutton shrugged. “After the first attempt.”

She opened a folder on her side panel and dragged the camera footage into it.

“I’m saving all of it. On an encrypted drive. If you want to press charges-” she nced at him “-we’ll have everything ready.”

Luca ran a hand through his hair. He looked like he wanted to punch something. Or someone.

“She really thought she could do thisi,/ii” /ihe said. “To me. To thepany. To you.”

“She still thinks she’s smarter than everyone elsei,/ii” /iSutton said. “But she didn’t count on me watching her from the inside.”

Silencei. /i

Then Luca said, quietly, “Thank you.”

She looked up. Grinning. “It was fun.”

Lucaughed. “Your idea of fun is very different to mine.”

Sutton swallowed. “I’m not done yet.”

She cracked her knucklesb. /bTurned back to the screen.

b“/bNow I’m going to find out who he is.”