Chapter 4 - Eight O’Clock at Romano Tower
Clara’s apartment building was old enough that the elevator made a different noise on every floor.
At 4:07 in the morning, Victor decided he hated all of them.
Adrian had parked three blocks away to avoid drawing attention.
They entered through the back door.
Clara climbed the stairs ahead of Victor, still carrying her laptop.
“You live alone?” Victor asked.
“Yes.”
“Anyone else have a key?”
“My landlord.”
“Family?”
“My mother lives in Pennsylvania.”
“Boyfriend?”
Clara glanced over her shoulder.
“No.”
Victor said nothing.
She narrowed her eyes.
“Was that professionally relevant?”
“Security.”
“Right.”
They reached the sixth floor.
Clara stopped.
Her apartment door was slightly open.
She went still.
“I locked it.”
Victor immediately moved her behind him.
Adrian drew his weapon.
They entered silently.
The living room had been destroyed.
Couch cushions sliced open.
Books dumped onto the floor.
Kitchen cabinets emptied.
Drawers overturned.
Clara stared.
“My apartment.”
Victor scanned the room.
“Stay here.”
“I’m not staying—”
“Clara.”
She heard something in his tone and stopped arguing.
Victor and Adrian searched every room.
Empty.
The intruders had left.
Clara walked slowly through the mess.
A broken picture frame lay near the couch.
She bent down.
Inside was a photograph of herself with an older woman.
Her mother.
The glass had cracked across their faces.
Victor returned.
“No one here.”
Clara touched the broken frame.
“They went through everything.”
“Looking for evidence.”
Her eyes suddenly widened.
“The cookbook.”
She rushed toward the kitchen.
Victor followed.
Cabinets hung open.
Food containers covered the floor.
Cookbooks had been thrown from a shelf.
Clara searched rapidly.
“Where is it?”
“What does it look like?”
“Blue. Old. It says Pennsylvania Dutch Baking on the front.”
Victor found three books.
None matched.
Clara’s breathing accelerated.
“They found it.”
“Maybe.”
She turned.
“If they found the printouts—”
A small noise came from the hallway.
Victor grabbed her.
Someone entered.
Adrian aimed his weapon.
“Hands!”
A woman screamed.
Clara gasped.
“Mrs. Donnelly!”
Their seventy-year-old neighbor stood in the doorway holding a baseball bat.
She stared at Adrian’s weapon.
Then at Victor.
Then at the demolished apartment.
“What in God’s name?”
Clara rushed toward her.
“I’m okay.”
Mrs. Donnelly lowered the bat slightly.
“I heard men in here twenty minutes ago.”
Victor stepped closer.
“How many?”
“Two. Maybe three.”
“Did you see them leave?”
“Yes.”
“Car?”
“Dark sedan.”
Clara looked defeated.
Then Mrs. Donnelly frowned.
“Oh, I almost forgot.”
She disappeared into the hallway.
A moment later she returned carrying a blue cookbook.
Clara stared.
“You have it?”
“You lent it to me yesterday.”
Clara blinked.
“I did?”
“You said you wanted my opinion on the apple cake recipe.”
Clara suddenly remembered.
She had hidden the printouts between pages, then loaned the cookbook before leaving for work without thinking.
Mrs. Donnelly held it out.
Victor took it.
Inside, between recipes for shoofly pie and cinnamon bread, were folded pages of financial records.
Adrian exhaled.
Clara looked at Victor.
“Told you nobody searches cookbooks.”
Victor stared at her.
“That may be the strangest security strategy I’ve ever seen.”
“But it worked.”
“It worked.”
Mrs. Donnelly looked between them.
“Who is he?”
Clara hesitated.
Victor answered.
“Her client.”
Mrs. Donnelly studied his tattoos.
“At four in the morning?”
Clara closed her eyes.
“Mrs. Donnelly.”
“I’m only asking.”
Victor almost smiled.
They left five minutes later.
Victor insisted Clara pack clothes.
She objected.
He ignored her.
“Where are we going?” she asked as they returned to the car.
“A safe house.”
“I have work tomorrow.”
Victor stared at her.
She sighed.
“Right. Murderous uncle.”
Adrian drove them downtown toward a private residence Victor owned under a holding company.
The townhouse sat on a quiet street in Greenwich Village.
No visible guards.
No Romano name.
Inside, however, security cameras covered every entrance.
Victor made coffee.
Clara watched him.
“You make your own coffee?”
He glanced at her.
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. A man named Giuseppe appearing from behind a curtain.”
“Giuseppe has Sundays off.”
She stared.
Victor’s expression remained serious.
Then she realized he was joking.
“You do that intentionally?”
“What?”
“Say ridiculous things with the same face you use when threatening people.”
“It’s efficient.”
Clara laughed.
The sound surprised both of them.
For thirty seconds, the night felt normal.
Then Adrian spread documents across the dining table.
Reality returned.
They had four hours before Marcus’s emergency board meeting.
Clara opened her laptop.
“We need to establish three things.”
Victor sat opposite her.
“Go.”
“First, the missing money wasn’t diverted by you. Second, Marcus controlled the shell companies. Third, someone manipulated corporate records afterward to frame you.”
Adrian pointed at the printouts.
“Can these prove it?”
“Partially.”
“Partially won’t save Victor at eight.”
Clara nodded.
“We need source logs.”
Victor leaned back.
“Those are stored in our internal accounting server.”
“Which Marcus controls.”
“Currently.”
Clara considered.
“Does he control banking authorization?”
Victor shook his head.
“Major transfers require two executive approvals.”
“Who has authority?”
“Me. Marcus. Chief Financial Officer Evelyn Shaw.”
Clara opened records.
“Then the transfers should show authorization tokens.”
Victor frowned.
“Unless they were forged.”
“No,” Clara said. “That’s the mistake.”
She turned the laptop.
“Your systems record approval tokens separately from the payment ledger. Whoever altered these files changed the visible names but apparently didn’t rewrite the underlying authentication hashes.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“You can identify who actually approved them?”
“With server access.”
Victor stood.
“We’ll get it.”
Clara looked up.
“How?”
Victor picked up his encrypted phone.
“Marcus controls the tower.”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t control every Romano property.”
Thirty minutes later they were underground beneath a luxury hotel on the west side.
Romano Hospitality maintained a disaster recovery server separate from headquarters.
Victor personally knew the facility manager.
At 5:02 AM, Clara connected.
Rows of authentication data appeared.
She searched.
The first transfer.
M. Romano.
The second.
M. Romano.
The third.
Marcus Romano.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Clara’s pulse quickened.
“We have him.”
Victor did not celebrate.
“Not yet.”
She opened the modification logs.
Someone had accessed the central accounting database ten days earlier.
Administrator credentials.
User: VROMANO.
Victor’s name.
Clara frowned.
“That’s what he plans to use against you.”
Victor looked at the timestamp.
“I was in London.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Hundreds of people saw me.”
“Good.”
She opened system metadata.
Then stopped.
“What?”
Clara leaned closer.
“The login came from your office terminal.”
Adrian swore quietly.
Victor’s office required biometric access.
Marcus had somehow entered.
Or someone Victor trusted had helped him.
Clara checked access records from the backup security database.
A badge number appeared.
She typed it.
A name populated.
Adrian’s face changed.
Victor noticed.
“Who?”
Clara looked between them.
“Daniel Price.”
Silence.
The same night supervisor who had warned them.
The same guard who claimed Marcus seized Security Control.
The same man who helped them escape.
Adrian shook his head.
“No.”
Clara looked at him.
“You trust him?”
“He’s been with us nine years.”
Victor stared at the data.
“Which means Marcus has had someone inside for nine years.”
The room suddenly felt colder.
Clara examined further.
Daniel’s badge entered Victor’s office three times.
Once during Victor’s London trip.
Once six months ago.
Once last night.
At 2:41 AM.
Thirty-three minutes before Adrian found Clara sleeping in the archive.
Victor remembered Daniel staying behind in the garage.
Covering their escape.
Or pretending to.
“Adrian,” Victor said.
“I know.”
Adrian reached for his phone.
Before he could dial, the underground facility lights flickered.
Clara froze.
Victor looked toward the entrance.
A security alarm sounded once.
Then stopped.
Adrian drew his weapon.
“Back room.”
Victor took Clara’s arm.
They moved.
A bullet struck the wall where Victor had been standing seconds earlier.
Clara screamed.
Gunfire erupted.
Victor pulled her behind a concrete server cabinet.
Adrian fired toward the doorway.
Footsteps approached.
Victor looked at Clara.
“Stay down.”
“Are you going somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“That seems like a bad idea.”
“Probably.”
Then he disappeared around the corner.
Clara crouched between humming server racks, holding her breath.
A man shouted.
Something crashed.
Another gunshot.
Silence.
Then footsteps.
Coming toward her.
Clara grabbed the nearest object.
A heavy fire extinguisher.
A shadow appeared.
She swung.
The extinguisher connected with someone’s shoulder.
“Damn it!”
Victor stumbled sideways.
Clara gasped.
“Oh my God.”
He stared at her.
“You hit me with a fire extinguisher.”
“I thought you were a murderer!”
“You could’ve asked.”
“I panicked!”
Despite the situation, Adrian laughed from across the room.
Victor looked offended.
Then Clara noticed blood on his sleeve.
Her face changed.
“You’re hurt.”
“Graze.”
“Sit.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sit.”
Victor Romano, feared by executives, criminals, politicians, and half the men who worked for him, stared at Clara Higgins.
She pointed at a chair.
“Now.”
He sat.
Adrian raised an eyebrow.
Victor ignored him.
Clara cleaned the wound with supplies from an emergency kit.
Her hands trembled slightly.
Victor noticed.
“You’re scared.”
“Of course I’m scared.”
“You don’t act like it.”
“I’m an accountant. We’re trained to panic internally.”
Victor watched her tape gauze against his arm.
“You could leave.”
She looked up.
“How?”
“I can arrange protection.”
“And then what?”
“You disappear until this is over.”
Clara’s eyes hardened.
“Marcus broke into my home.”
“Yes.”
“He threatened me.”
“Yes.”
“He stole money from sick children and tried to frame you.”
Victor said nothing.
She closed the kit.
“I’m not disappearing.”
For several seconds, they simply looked at one another.
Something shifted between them.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Recognition.
Victor had spent his life surrounded by people who claimed loyalty because they feared him, needed him, or wanted something from him.
Clara Higgins had known him for one night.
And she was staying because she believed the truth mattered.
Adrian interrupted.
“We have ninety minutes.”
Clara stood.
“Then we finish this.”
She returned to the server.
Within fifteen minutes, she found the final piece.
A digital approval certificate tied directly to Marcus’s private token.
Undeniable.
Victor looked at the evidence.
“Can the board dismiss it?”
“Not if I present the complete audit trail.”
“And will you?”
Clara met his eyes.
“Yes.”
Adrian checked the time.
6:37 AM.
Victor picked up his jacket.
“Then we’re going back to Romano Tower.”
Clara stared at him.
“The building full of men trying to kill us?”
“Yes.”
She sighed.
“I knew you were going to say that.”
Victor held out his hand.
For a second, Clara only looked at it.
May you like
Then she took it.
And together they prepared to walk straight into the trap Marcus Romano had built for them.
