Chapter 9 - The Leak Inside My New Company
The leaked presentation appeared on an anonymous design forum at 6:14 a.m.
By seven, screenshots were spreading.
At 7:20, Apex called.
Jonathan Pierce was controlled but furious.
“Nora, tell me you know what happened.”
“I don't.”
“When will you?”
“Soon.”
I assembled the team.
No accusations.
No dramatic confrontation.
We audited access logs.
Six employees had opened the file in the previous forty-eight hours.
Elena was one.
Maya was another.
Daniel.
Two designers.
And me.
The seventh account belonged to an administrator who had resigned from Holloway & Bennett.
Calvin Moore.
Calvin had joined us twelve days earlier.
He looked terrified when Marcus interviewed him.
“I didn't leak anything.”
“Your credentials accessed it at 2:13 a.m.”
“I was asleep.”
“Can you prove that?”
“My wife can.”
That wasn't enough.
Then our security consultant found something.
Calvin's login originated from an old Holloway & Bennett device.
Someone still had access to credentials transferred during onboarding.
The leak came from outside.
We traced the machine.
Claire called before we reached the answer.
“Nora, Grant found something.”
“What?”
“Mom kept an old company laptop.”
Of course she did.
Vivian denied leaking anything.
But digital evidence told a different story.
The machine had connected to her home network.
Whether she personally uploaded the presentation remained for investigators to determine.
But Apex accepted our forensic findings.
The contract survived.
Barely.
I changed every security protocol that afternoon.
Then I did something Grant never expected.
I called him.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Finding the laptop.”
“That's a low standard for gratitude.”
“It is.”
He laughed softly.
I hadn't heard that laugh in years.
It made something ache.
Not because I wanted him back.
Because I remembered who we had once been.
“Nora?”
“Yes?”
“I've started therapy.”
I said nothing.
“Not to get you back.”
“Good.”
“I mean it.”
“Good.”
“I spent years blaming Mom for what I didn't like about myself.”
“And now?”
“Now I'm trying not to.”
That was the first apology from Grant that didn't secretly ask me to rescue him from the consequences.
I respected it.
But respect wasn't reconciliation.
The following week, Holloway & Bennett officially ceased operations.
Grant sent every remaining employee their final pay.
He sold his sports car to help cover severance.
Vivian called him foolish.
He did it anyway.
Then he sold the mansion.
The same mansion she had ordered me to leave.
When the listing went online, I stared at the photographs.
Our kitchen.
Our bedroom.
My old studio.
The empty wall where the safe had been.
I felt no desire to return.
That was how I knew I was finally healing.
But before the house sold, Grant found something behind a loose panel in my old studio.
A sealed envelope.
My name was written across it.
Not in Vivian's handwriting.
Not Grant's.
Grandma Ruth's.
Inside was a letter dated eight years earlier.
May you like
And the first sentence made me sit down.
NORA, IF YOU ARE READING THIS, THEN YOU FINALLY LEARNED THAT WINNING IS NOT THE SAME AS BEING FREE.
