Chapter 53 The Lion’s Den
Aria POV
The ride from the clubhouse to the city center was quiet because Jax was focused on dodging the Syndicate patrols that were prowling the main roads, and I spent most of the time staring out the window at the familiar streets that now felt like a foreign country to me.
We pulled up to the front of the Apex headquarters, which was a massive tower made of blue glass and steel that reflected the sunlight so brightly it hurt my eyes, but as I stepped out of the car, I noticed that the sidewalk was empty and the usual crowd of morning commuters was nowhere to be seen.
The lobby was even worse because the air conditioning was cranked up so high that it felt like walking into a refrigerator, and the receptionist didn't even smile when I walked toward the desk, since she was too busy checking the credentials of two security guards who were standing by the elevators with their hands on their belts.
"I'm here for the re-hearing with Mr. Sterling, and this is my associate, Jax, who will be joining me for the meeting," I told the woman, and I made sure to stand up straight even though my stomach was doing somersaults and the weight of the gun at my back felt like it was pulling me down.
"They're waiting for you on the top floor, but your friend will have to leave his electronic devices at the security station if he wants to go up with you," she replied, her voice sounding robotic and bored as she pointed toward a plastic bin on the counter.
Jax looked at me and gave me a quick wink, which was his way of telling me that he had already hidden his main hacking tools in his boots and that the tablet he was handing over was just a decoy to keep them happy.
We stepped into the elevator and the doors slid shut with a silent hiss, and for a second I felt like the floor was dropping out from under me as the lift shot toward the penthouse level without a single vibration or sound. When the doors finally opened, we weren't in the familiar HR department where I used to submit my time sheets, but instead we were standing in front of a pair of heavy mahogany doors that led to the main executive boardroom.
I pushed the doors open and walked inside, but I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the people sitting around the long glass table, because it wasn't a group of HR managers or labor lawyers waiting for me.
There were five executives in charcoal suits who all looked like they were carved out of stone, and in the far corner of the room, Jess was sitting in a leather chair with his legs crossed and a look of pure satisfaction on his face that made my blood start to boil.
He didn't look like the nervous guy who had been hiding in the clubhouse kitchen earlier, because he was wearing a crisp white shirt and he was playing with an expensive-looking pen like he owned the entire building.
"Aria, thank you for being so punctual, though I see you've brought a member of the Hart security team along for the ride," Mr. Sterling said, and he didn't even stand up to greet me as he gestured toward the two empty chairs at the far end of the table.
"You told me this was a hearing about my termination and a potential settlement for the bakery fire, so why is Jess sitting in on a private employment meeting?" I asked, and I didn't sit down because I wanted to stay on my feet in case the security guards at the door decided to make a move.
"The bakery fire was just a catalyst that brought certain facts to light, and we realized that your employment history was the least of our concerns once we started looking into the data breaches that occurred during your final months here," Sterling explained, and he dropped the professional tone he had used on the phone, as his voice became cold and accusatory. "This isn't a hearing about your job, Aria, it's a formal tribunal regarding corporate espionage and the theft of high-level Syndicate technology that was stolen from our logistics servers and sold to the Iron Fang pack."
"That's a lie and you know it, because I was a junior clerk who didn't even have access to the server rooms or the encrypted files," I shouted, but Jess just laughed and stood up to walk toward the head of the table.
"That's what we all thought, but it turns out you were much more clever than you looked when you were filing those shipping manifests," Jess said, and he looked at me with a fake sense of disappointment that made me want to jump across the table and hit him.
"I've been working with the Apex security team to track the leak, and we found a trail of digital breadcrumbs that leads directly to your employee ID and the laptop you've been keeping in your room at the clubhouse."
I felt Jax shift slightly behind me, and I remembered what he said about letting Jess play his hand so we could see the full extent of the frame-up, so I took a deep breath and forced myself to stay calm while I gripped the back of the chair.
"So you're saying that I’m a high-tech spy who managed to bypass the best security in the city just so I could help a bunch of bikers who ended up burning down the shop where I worked? That sounds like a story you made up because you're mad that Grayson stopped listening to your advice and started trusting me instead."
"The board doesn't care about your petty pack politics, they only care about the three million dollars that was transferred out of the research budget and into a private account that was accessed from your IP address," Sterling added, and he opened a thick folder to show me a series of bank statements that had my name and my old apartment address printed at the top in bold letters.
I looked at the numbers and realized that they had spent a lot of time making this look real, because the dates of the transfers matched up with the days I had stayed late at the office to finish my work.
I could see the trap closing around me, and I realized that the Iron Fangs and Jess were working together to make me look so guilty that Grayson would have no choice but to turn me over to the Syndicate to save his own reputation.
"I'm sure you have a lot to say in your defense, but the evidence we have is quite extensive, so I suggest you sit down and listen to what Mr. Jess has discovered before we call the city police to take you into custody," one of the female executives said, and she looked at me with so much disgust that I felt like a bug under a microscope.
I sat down and looked at Jax, who gave me a small, barely visible nod that told me he was recording everything that was being said in the room, and I realized that the "Apex Trial" was just starting. Jess walked over to the large projector screen and started pulling up files that I knew he had planted on my laptop, and as the first set of fake emails appeared on the wall,