Chapter 51 FIFTY-ONE
Lennox couldn't sleep. Again. Just laid there staring at the ceiling, replaying Cole's words.
Around two AM she gave up. Got her laptop, made coffee she didn't need, and went back to work on the one thing that might actually give her some answers.
Apex Investigations. The PI firm that got paid fifty thousand dollars three months before her life fell apart.
She'd been trying to crack their system for weeks now. Their security was better than most PI firms, which was suspicious in itself. But she'd found a vulnerability in their client portal two days ago, something small in the authentication system that she could exploit if she was careful.
She had to be really careful. One wrong move and they'd know someone was trying to get in. But she was tired of being careful. Tired of not knowing. Tired of all of it. And that was saying something, because since being Cipher she’d always loved the thrill of the chase. Partly because she knew however long her investigations took she’d always close the case, she was that good.
She set up her usual security measures. VPN through three different countries, spoofed MAC address, routing through servers that would make her untraceable. Then she started working.
It took an hour. An hour of careful probing, testing the vulnerability, backing off when the system got suspicious, trying again from a different angle. Her coffee went cold. Her eyes burned. But she kept going because she was close, so close.
At three fifteen AM she got in.
The system opened up and she was looking at Apex Investigations' client database. Hundreds of files, thousands of cases. She searched for the payment date, the amount, anything that would match what she'd found in the Meridian Consulting records.
There. A file from five months ago. Client payment of fifty thousand dollars, paid in full, case closed three months later.
She opened it and her breath stopped.
Her face stared back at her from the screen. A photo taken outside her old apartment building. She was in jeans and a sweater, coffee cup in hand, looking tired. She remembered that day vaguely, it was just a normal morning before everything went to hell.
She scrolled down.
More photos. Her walking to work. Her at her desk in the old office. Her meeting friends for drinks. Her grocery shopping. Someone had been following her for weeks, documenting everything.
Her hands were shaking so bad she could barely control the mouse.
There were reports too. Detailed reports. Her daily routine, where she went, who she talked to, what time she left for work and came home. Her financial records, pulled from somewhere, showing her barely making rent each month. Background check. Employment history. Even her college transcripts.
They'd investigated everything. Every detail of her life.
The file went deeper. Her ex boyfriend, Jake. His gambling problems documented in detail. His debts. The places he went, the people he owed money to. Photos of him at the casino, at the track, looking desperate and strung out.
Someone had been watching both of them. Learning their patterns. Finding their weaknesses.
She kept scrolling, heart pounding so hard it hurt.
Then she found the summary report. The one that would've gone to whoever paid for this. It was clinical, detached, laying out everything they'd learned.
Subject: Lennox Rivers, 26, financial analyst at Morrison & Fletcher. Struggling financially but honest work history. No criminal record. Technologically proficient, computer science minor. Relationship with Jacob (Jake) Matthews, unemployed, significant gambling addiction. Matthews has debts exceeding $80,000 to various creditors.
Assessment: Subject is vulnerable due to financial stress and relationship with high-risk individual. Matthews' desperation makes him easy to manipulate. Subject herself shows no signs of criminal behavior but has the technical skills and financial motivation that could be exploited under the right circumstances.
Recommendation: Subject is suitable for proposed arrangement. Matthews can be leveraged to create the necessary situation. Subject will have no viable options and will be forced to accept any solution offered.
She read it three times. The words didn't change.
Someone had investigated her specifically to set her up. Had looked at her life, at Jake's problems, and decided she was perfect for whatever they had planned.
They'd used Jake. Manipulated him somehow, probably paid off some of his debts or promised to, gotten him to steal that money and frame her. Created a situation where she was desperate and trapped and had no choice but to accept help from whoever offered it.
And then the lawyers had shown up with the contract marriage offer. Fifty thousand dollars of her debt paid, plus more. A solution that seemed too good to be true because it was too good to be true.
Someone had orchestrated all of it. Every single fucking piece.
She scrolled to the payment information, hands shaking worse now. The fifty thousand had come from a wire transfer. The account was listed as belonging to Meridian Consulting LLC.
One of the shell companies she'd been tracking. One of the companies being used to embezzle from Westbrook Industries.
Someone with access to those accounts had paid to have her investigated. Had set up her entire downfall. Had arranged for her to be desperate enough to accept a marriage contract with Callum.
But who? And why did they want her here specifically?
Was it just about finding someone desperate and controllable for Callum to marry? Or was there something else? Did they know she was Cipher? Did they know she investigated corporate corruption? Could it even be Callum himself?
Her mind was racing, trying to connect pieces that didn't quite fit yet.
Someone on that board of nine people. Someone with access to the shell companies. Someone who'd been planning this for months before it happened.
She pulled up her suspect list. Stared at the names.
Victor. Callum. Cole. Margaret. Robert. James. David. Elena.
One of them had done this. Had looked at her life and decided she was useful. Had destroyed everything she had to force her into this position.
She checked the date on the initial investigation request. Six months ago. Right around when Callum would've been getting pressure about the will requirement, about needing to get married.
Had someone been planning this from the start? Setting up the perfect desperate candidate who'd sign anything to escape prison?
Or was it darker than that? Did they specifically need someone with her skills? Someone who could hack, who could investigate, who could access things most people couldn't?
She looked at the photos of herself on the screen. Candid shots taken without her knowledge. Her whole life laid out for someone to study and exploit.
She felt violated. Used. Angry in a way that made her hands shake and her vision blur.
Someone had done this to her. Someone sitting in boardrooms and making decisions about Westbrook Industries had looked at her life and decided to destroy it for their own purposes.
And she was living with Callum. Sleeping with him. Falling for him. While someone who worked with him had set her up and put her here. Worse, it could even be him. But if it was what was he playing at?
She needed to know who. Needed to figure out which of those nine names on her list had paid Apex Investigations to ruin her life.
She looked at the client file again. There had to be something else. Some clue about who actually authorized the investigation.
There was a contact email listed. Not a name, just an email address. \[email protected\].
She ran a trace on it. The domain was registered to a shell company, different from Meridian but probably connected. The registration information was hidden behind privacy services.
She dug deeper. Followed the technical trail through DNS records and hosting information. It took another hour but she finally found something. The email server was hosted on the same infrastructure as several other domains. Corporate domains.
Westbrook Industries domains.
Whoever set this up had used Westbrook's own technical infrastructure. Which meant it was someone with serious access. Someone who knew the systems well enough to hide their tracks but not well enough to completely cover them.
She sat back, stared at the screen.
Someone at Westbrook had orchestrated her entire setup. Had paid to investigate her, had manipulated Jake, had arranged for her to be offered this contract marriage.
Someone wanted her here. In this apartment. Close to Callum. For a reason she still couldn't figure out.
And she was sleeping in his bed while lying to him about who she was and what she was really doing.
She looked at the photos on her screen. Her face in dozens of surveillance shots, her whole life documented and analyzed like she was a specimen under a microscope.
Who wanted her here? And what did they want her to do?