Chapter 3 - The Flash Drive Secrets
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The elevator doors opened into the quiet, marble-lined lobby, but neither of us moved toward the street immediately.
Rosa kept her eyes fixed on the illuminated floor numbers, her breathing shallow and uneven.
“I’m not the first,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the building’s ventilation system.
My hand tightened around my phone. “The first what, Rosa?”
“The first employee he threatened,” she said, looking up at me with tears welling in her eyes. “There were two women before me. One signed a settlement last year. The other vanished after he publicly accused her of stealing silver from his dining room.”
A cold dread settled deep in my chest. This wasn't a sudden, isolated mistake born of panic. This was a refined, calculated pattern of behavior.
“Do you have any proof of this?” I asked quietly.
Rosa reached into the deep pocket of her oversized sweater and pulled out a small, silver flash drive attached to a keyring.
“He made me clean his home office thoroughly last week,” she explained, wiping her cheeks with her sleeve. “He left his backup drive plugged into his desktop. I copied everything onto this before I came down to the kitchen today.”
We stepped out of the building into the cool evening air. I immediately dialed my former law partner, Marcus, once again.
“Marcus,” I said, as soon as he answered. “Add potential witness intimidation, coercion, and falsified police complaints to the ethics review for Sterling Tech.”
There was a brief pause on the line before Marcus replied in a hard, professional tone. “Send me whatever you have. The merger board meets on Friday.”
I hailed a taxi, and Rosa and I went directly to the secure headquarters of my nonprofit foundation downtown.
Once inside my private office, I plugged Rosa’s silver drive into my laptop. The directory opened, revealing dozens of neatly organized folders.
Inside were internal emails, private payment receipts, non-disclosure agreements, and draft legal complaints that Adrian had prepared against his staff long before any conflict had even begun.
Then my eyes caught a folder created just three days ago.
It bore Rosa’s full name.
May you like
Rosa leaned over my desk, covered her mouth with both hands, and let out a broken sob.
Inside was an official police report alleging that Rosa had stolen forty thousand dollars worth of designer watches and jewelry. It was already fully drafted, signed by Adrian, and saved as a PDF—ready to be filed the moment she refused his demands.
