Chapter 4 - The Penthouse Nobody Knew About
“I am absolutely going home.”
“No.”
Vivian stared at Jensen.
“No?”
“No.”
“You don't get to decide where I sleep.”
“Correct.”
“Then why did you just say no?”
“Because someone photographed your apartment building.”
“That doesn't mean—”
“It means they know where you live.”
Vivian folded her arms.
“And your solution is what? Lock me in the presidential suite?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“My apartment.”
She stared.
“That is considerably worse.”
Despite the situation, Jensen almost smiled.
“It has security.”
“So does the hotel.”
“I currently don't trust hotel security.”
That ended the argument.
Jensen's residence occupied the top two floors of a quiet building several blocks from the Hargrove.
Vivian expected excess.
Instead she found restraint.
Dark wood.
Books.
Large windows.
Very little decoration.
No gold statues.
No indoor fountain.
She looked around.
“This is disappointing.”
Jensen removed his coat.
“What is?”
“I expected billionaire nonsense.”
“Define billionaire nonsense.”
“A shark tank.”
“I don't have a shark.”
“Piano nobody plays?”
“I play.”
Vivian looked toward the black grand piano.
“Of course you do.”
He gave her the guest room.
She refused expensive room service and made scrambled eggs instead.
Jensen stood in the kitchen watching her.
“You own food.”
“That surprises you?”
“Honestly, yes.”
He opened a cabinet.
“You're insulting me in my own home.”
“You'll survive.”
It was the most normal hour either of them had experienced all week.
They talked.
Not about the investigation.
About music.
Bad coffee.
Vivian's childhood.
Jensen's mother.
The first company he built from a rented room with two desks and one broken heater.
Vivian began to understand why he had noticed her.
Not because she was beautiful.
Though he clearly thought she was.
Not because she worked for him.
Because she reminded him of a world he had spent years climbing away from.
A world in which people counted every dollar.
Every bus.
Every electricity bill.
At midnight, Vivian stood by the windows.
“Do you ever miss being nobody?”
Jensen joined her.
“I was never nobody.”
She glanced at him.
He continued.
“I was poor. Those aren't the same thing.”
Vivian looked out over the lights.
Something in her chest shifted.
For years she had confused having little money with being little.
Jensen seemed to understand that without her explaining.
“You aren't nobody either,” he said.
She swallowed.
“That sounds like something rich people say to make poor people feel inspirational.”
He laughed quietly.
“Fair.”
Then his expression softened.
“You're still not.”
The next morning, the investigation exploded.
Jensen's forensic team found the vendor.
Marlowe Hospitality Systems.
It had received nearly four million dollars from the Hargrove over three years.
The company existed legally.
Its products largely did not.
And its mailing address belonged to a shell corporation connected to Peter Lang's brother-in-law.
Jensen now had enough evidence to move.
But he waited.
“Why?” Vivian asked.
“Because Peter didn't authorize payments alone.”
“You want Bell.”
“I want everyone.”
They returned to the hotel separately.
Nobody was supposed to know Vivian had stayed at Jensen's residence.
By lunch, everyone seemed to know.
Daphne cornered her.
“Did you spend the night with Jensen Theer?”
Vivian nearly inhaled her coffee.
“What?”
“I heard you got out of his car this morning.”
“He gave me a safe place to stay.”
Daphne's eyes widened.
“That somehow sounds more interesting.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Did you want something to happen?”
Vivian stared at her.
Daphne smiled.
“That wasn't a no.”
Vivian escaped before her face betrayed her.
Across the lobby, Jensen was speaking to investors.
He glanced toward her.
Their eyes met.
Vivian smiled without thinking.
Jensen stopped listening to the investor for half a beat.
Daphne saw it.
“Oh.”
Vivian turned.
“Oh what?”
“That man is in trouble.”
“Stop.”
“He looked at you like the rest of the room disappeared.”
Vivian's heart did something inconvenient.
By three o'clock, the inconvenience became irrelevant.
Raman disappeared.
He didn't clock out.
Didn't answer his phone.
His locker was empty.
Jensen's team reviewed the security footage.
At 1:17 p.m., Raman had left through the loading dock carrying a backpack.
Vivian felt sick.
“He did it.”
“We don't know that.”
“You always say that.”
“Because it's usually true.”
At four-thirty, Vivian received a voicemail.
From Raman.
His voice shook.
“Viv, I'm sorry. I didn't steal anything. Bell made me copy your card. He said he'd fire my sister if I didn't. She's on a work visa through one of their contractors. I didn't know they were framing you until afterward.”
Vivian closed her eyes.
The message continued.
“I have something. Records. I copied them because I knew one day they'd blame me too.”
Then a pause.
“If you're hearing this, I couldn't bring them to you.”
Another pause.
“Check where the light flickers.”
The voicemail ended.
Vivian looked at Jensen.
“Where the light flickers.”
He understood immediately.
The basement laundry room.
They went downstairs.
The fluorescent light flickered.
Every forty-seven seconds.
Vivian looked up.
“Not the light.”
“What?”
“The fixture.”
Jensen brought over a ladder.
Above the ceiling panel, taped to the metal frame, they found a small flash drive.
On it were invoices.
Emails.
Payroll records.
And photographs.
Enough to destroy Howard Bell's entire operation.
But one file was different.
A PDF labeled:
THEER ACQUISITIONS — INTERNAL
Jensen opened it.
Vivian watched his face.
“What?”
He didn't answer.
“What is it?”
He turned the laptop.
The document showed payments from Marlowe Hospitality Systems.
Not to Howard Bell.
Not to Peter Lang.
To a senior executive at Jensen's own company.
Vivian read the name.
Then looked at Jensen.
“You know him?”
Jensen's expression became stone.
“Yes.”
“How well?”
A long silence.
May you like
Then:
“He's my uncle.”
