Chapter 64 SIXTY-FOUR
The penthouse felt different when they got back. Lennox couldn't explain it, couldn't point to anything specific that had changed, but something felt wrong. Like the air itself had been disturbed while they were gone.
"Home sweet home," Callum said, dropping their bags by the door. "I'll unpack later. Right now I just want to collapse."
"You slept the entire flight."
"Jet lag is real. Don't judge me." He kissed her forehead. "I'm going to take a nap. Wake me up in a few hours?"
"Sure."
She waited until she heard the bedroom door close before she started checking the penthouse. Moved through each room slowly, looking for anything out of place. Her room, the kitchen, the living room, Callum's office. Everything seemed normal but the feeling wouldn't go away.
She checked for bugs next, using the detection equipment she'd bought months ago and hidden in the back of her closet. Swept every room, every piece of furniture, looking for surveillance devices or listening equipment.
Nothing. The penthouse was clean.
But she still felt watched.
Over the next few days, the paranoia got worse. She'd be walking to the coffee shop and feel eyes on her back. Turn around and see nothing unusual, just normal people going about their day. But the feeling persisted.
She started changing her routine. Different coffee shops, different times for her walks, different routes through the city. Tried to be unpredictable, harder to follow.
One afternoon she doubled back on herself three times and caught a glimpse of the same man in a gray jacket two blocks behind her. When she stopped to look in a store window, he stopped too. When she turned a corner, he followed.
She lost him in the crowd near Grand Central, ducked into a bookstore and out the back exit. But knowing for sure that someone was following her made everything worse, not better.
She couldn't tell Callum. He'd ask why someone would be following her, would want to investigate, would probably confront whoever it was. And that would lead to questions she couldn't answer without revealing everything.
Her investigation had stalled out completely. She'd found the emails and the financial records proving the embezzlement, had traced the shell companies and offshore accounts. But the most damaging files, the ones that would definitively connect Victor to everything, were encrypted with something she couldn't crack.
She'd tried everything. Different algorithms, brute force attacks, everything in her considerable toolkit. Nothing worked. He'd protected the crucial evidence too well, layers of encryption that would take months to break through with the resources she had.
She needed help. Someone with skills that matched or exceeded her own, someone who could break through encryption she couldn't handle alone.
But who could she trust?
Going to another hacker meant exposing herself as Cipher, admitting to crimes that could send her to prison. Going to the authorities meant the same thing, plus she'd need to explain how she got the evidence in the first place. Illegal hacking wouldn't hold up in court, might even get the case thrown out entirely.
She spent hours at her laptop, staring at the encrypted files like willpower alone could unlock them. Tried new approaches, different entry points. Hit the same walls over and over.
One night she woke up at three in the morning in a cold sweat, heart pounding. She'd been dreaming about Victor, about him showing up at the penthouse with evidence of who she was and watching Callum's face when he learned the truth.
She got out of bed carefully so she wouldn't wake Callum, went to her room and opened her laptop. The encrypted files mocked her, sitting there inaccessible while Victor probably had people following her every move.
Her phone was on the desk. She picked it up, scrolled through her contacts without really seeing them.
Cole's name caught her eye. She stopped scrolling, stared at it.
He was smart, connected, had resources she didn't have access to. And he had as much to lose as she did if Victor's plan succeeded, maybe more since he was actually family.
But telling Cole meant revealing she was Cipher. Meant admitting she'd been investigating the Westbrooks from the beginning, that she'd married Callum while hiding who she really was. Meant trusting someone she barely knew with information that could destroy her completely.
Cole might help. Or he might go straight to Callum and expose her himself, might see her as a threat to his brother rather than an ally.
She set the phone down, closed her laptop. This wasn't a decision to make at three in the morning running on fear and exhaustion.
But over the next few days, she kept coming back to it. Kept weighing the options, trying to figure out if there was any other way forward.
Every time she left the penthouse she felt the surveillance, knew Victor's people were tracking her movements. Every time Callum asked her what was wrong and she lied, the guilt ate at her a little more. Every time she tried to crack those encrypted files and failed, the desperation grew.
She was trapped. Couldn't move forward alone, couldn't risk telling the wrong person, couldn't keep hiding while Victor orchestrated whatever endgame he had planned.
Callum noticed something was wrong. He'd come home from the office and find her staring at her laptop, or catch her checking over her shoulder when they went out for dinner.
"You okay?" he asked one night, sitting next to her on the couch where she'd been pretending to read.
"Yeah, fine. Just tired."
"You've been tired a lot lately. Since we got back from London." He took her hand. "Talk to me. What's going on?"
"Nothing. I think I'm just adjusting to being back, the time difference messed with my sleep."
"It's been a week."
"I know. I'll be fine, I promise."
He looked like he wanted to push, wanted to demand real answers. But he just kissed her forehead and let it go, trusted her to tell him when she was ready.
That trust made everything worse. Because she wasn't going to tell him, couldn't tell him without proof that would make him believe her. And she was running out of time to get that proof before Victor made his next move.
She thought about Cole constantly. Ran through scenarios in her head, imagining how the conversation would go. What she'd say, how he'd react, whether he'd help or turn on her immediately.
But she couldn't bring herself to actually contact him yet. Couldn't take that final step that would expose everything she'd been hiding.
So she stayed trapped in the same pattern. Checking for surveillance, changing her routine, trying to crack encryption that wouldn't break. Lying to Callum every time he asked what was wrong. Feeling the walls close in while Victor watched and waited for the perfect moment to strike.
She needed to make a decision soon. Needed to either trust Cole with the truth or find another way forward.
But right now, alone in her room at five in the morning with her laptop showing encrypted files she couldn't access, she had no idea which choice would destroy her faster.