PART 3:

And if he was innocent, if somehow the evidence was wrong, if someone had framed him, if this was all a terrible mistake. No. The evidence was clear. The forensics team had checked twice. Mason Reed’s credentials, Mason Reed’s access codes, Mason Reed’s digital fingerprints all over the theft.

Sometimes the obvious answer was the correct one. She approved the statement at a red light somewhere near Washington Square Park, then put her phone away and watched the snow bury the city in silence. The clock ticked. Mason Reed lived in a fourth-floor walk-up in Queens, the kind of building that had survived three generations through sheer stubbornness and rent control.

Scarlett knew this because she’d looked up his address in the employee database, though she couldn’t explain to herself why she cared. The apartment was small. She could tell from the building’s layout, from the narrow hallway visible in the background of his emergency contact photo. One bedroom, maybe two if you counted a converted closet.

Old radiator heat, windows that probably leaked during storms. She wondered if his daughter had her own room. She wondered if they could afford to stay there after tomorrow’s news broke. Then she reminded herself that none of this was her problem. Mason Reed had made his choices. She’d made hers. The world kept turning. Her apartment was on the 23rd floor, all glass and steel and carefully curated emptiness.

She’d hired a designer who specialized in minimalist luxury, which apparently meant spending enormous amounts of money to make everything look like no one actually lived there. White walls, black furniture, abstract art that cost more than most people’s cars. Scarlett dropped her bag on the kitchen counter and poured herself three fingers of scotch from a bottle that had been a gift from an investor.

She didn’t particularly like scotch, but drinking it made her feel like the kind of person who had her life together. She stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at Manhattan’s glittering skyline. Somewhere out there, Mason Reed was probably putting his daughter to bed, reading her a story, pretending everything was fine even though his life was about to implode.

He should have thought about that before he stole from us. But the voice in her head sounded hollow. Scarlett finished her drink, took a shower hot enough to hurt, and climbed into bed. Sleep came hard and left early. She dreamed about snow falling on an empty office building, about a man with tired eyes walking away into nothing, about a reflection fractured across glass walls that wouldn’t stop breaking.

When she woke up at 5:30 a.m., her phone was already flooded with notifications. The story had broken. Mason Reed’s name was everywhere. Orion Global employee accused of massive data theft. Single father allegedly behind corporate espionage scheme. Tech company cracks down on internal betrayal.

Some headlines included his photo. That same department ID picture, tired eyes and dark hair, blown up across news websites and social media. The comment sections were already filling with anger, speculation, judgment from people who didn’t know anything about the truth. Scarlett got dressed in the dark, her hands moving automatically through the routine.

Suit, heels, makeup applied with precision. Armor for another day of war. By 6:30 she was back in her office, door closed, going through the overnight reports. The stock price had stabilized slightly. Two of the canceled contracts had reached out about possible negotiations. The board was pleased with the swift action.

Everything was going according to plan. So, why did she feel like she’d just set fire to something she couldn’t rebuild? Mason Reed didn’t show up for work that day. Obviously. Security had already deactivated his credentials, cleaned out his desk, erased him from the building like he’d never existed. Scarlett tried to focus on damage control.

Calls with investors, meetings with legal, interviews with news outlets where she said all the right things about protecting shareholder value and maintaining security standards. Everyone congratulated her on handling the crisis so well. At 2:00 p.m. her assistant knocked on the door. “Ms.

Vaughn, the forensics team wants to see you. They said it’s important.” Scarlett’s stomach tightened. “Send them in.” Three people filed into her office. Two men and a woman, all wearing the same exhausted expression of people who’d been staring at computer screens for too long. The woman, Sarah Chen from IT security, carried a tablet like it contained a bomb.

“We found something,” Sarah said without preamble. “Something wrong with the initial audit.” “Wrong how?” “The access logs are accurate. Someone definitely used Mason Reed’s credentials to breach the servers. But when we dug deeper into the authentication protocols She pulled up a screen full of code. The biometric signature doesn’t match.

Scarlet felt cold. Explain. Every time an employee uses their credentials, the system captures multiple data points. Fingerprint, typing pattern, even subtle things like mouse movement habits. Mason Reed’s credentials were used, but the biometric markers are wrong. The timing is off by milliseconds, the keystroke patterns don’t match his baseline, the mouse movements are too precise.

👉 [Tap here for the Next Part ] 👈