Chapter 2 - THE CONTRACT NOBODY WANTED HER TO READ
Rachel stared at Adrien.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then she set her tool bag on the table.
“You used your own security company to investigate your own building?”
“Yes.”
“And they found nothing?”
“Nothing they reported.”
Rachel looked toward the door Vincent had just closed.
“That’s a different answer.”
Adrien's expression remained unreadable.
“It is.”
Outside, thunder rolled over Chicago.
Rachel glanced at the wall clock.
12:47 a.m.
She had been on-site since six that morning. Her boots were wet, her shoulders ached, and her phone contained three messages from her younger brother asking whether she was coming home.
She should have left.
Instead, she asked the question she couldn't ignore.
“How long have you suspected someone was watching you?”
Adrien moved toward the table.
“Eight months.”
Rachel stared.
“Eight months?”
“I found references to conversations I’d had in private.”
“What kind of references?”
“Business decisions. Meeting locations. Names.”
“And you didn’t search for listening devices?”
“I did.”
“With the same people responsible for securing the building?”
He looked at her.
“That was my mistake.”
Rachel exhaled.
“Mr. Reichi, I can identify unauthorized circuits. I can inspect distribution equipment and compare installation dates. But I’m not an investigator.”
“I’m not asking you to be one.”
“What are you asking?”
“To determine how much of my building has been compromised.”
Rachel considered.
That was technical work.
Work she understood.
Work that belonged to her.
“Then you need a written contract,” she said.
Adrien raised an eyebrow.
“A contract?”
“Yes. Scope, payment, liability, access permissions, safety procedures, and independent documentation.”
Something almost like amusement crossed his face.
“You negotiate like a lawyer.”
“I negotiate like someone who has been blamed for other people’s mistakes.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
Rachel continued.
“I choose my own assistants. No one interferes with my findings. And if I discover evidence of criminal activity, it goes to the appropriate authorities.”
Adrien studied her.
“Even if it implicates me?”
“Especially then.”
Silence.
Then he extended his hand.
“Agreed.”
Rachel looked at it.
She didn't shake immediately.
“Written first.”
For the first time that night, Adrien Reichi smiled.
A real smile.
Brief.
Unexpected.
“Written first.”
***
The contract arrived at 2:16 a.m.
Rachel read every page.
Then called a lawyer.
Adrien watched her from across the conference table.
“You have an attorney available at two in the morning?”
“My aunt.”
“What does she practice?”
“Employment law.”
“Convenient.”
“She thinks so.”
Rachel put the call on speaker.
Her aunt, Denise Morgan, answered with the weary voice of a woman who had raised three children and had no patience left for powerful men.
“Rachel, why are you calling me from a mafia boss’s hotel?”
Adrien looked up.
Rachel closed her eyes.
“Aunt Denise.”
“What?”
“You’re on speaker.”
A pause.
Then:
“Good evening, Mr. Mafia Boss.”
Adrien's mouth twitched.
“Good evening, Ms. Morgan.”
Denise continued.
“If my niece is working for you, she gets paid.”
“Agreed.”
“And if your people threaten her, I will make your legal department miserable.”
“Understood.”
“And no funny business.”
Rachel covered her face.
Adrien answered calmly.
“I’ll do my best.”
Denise snorted.
“That’s not reassuring.”
By three in the morning, the contract was revised.
Rachel received an independent consultant's fee, a written guarantee of unrestricted access to relevant building records, and permission to bring an outside electrical engineer.
She also insisted that the building's safety systems remain under qualified facilities personnel during inspections.
Adrien signed.
So did Rachel.
Then she finally went home.
***
Her apartment was above a bakery on Chicago's northwest side.
The hallway smelled of bread and cinnamon.
Rachel climbed the stairs quietly.
Her brother, Owen, was asleep on the couch.
At nineteen, he was too tall for it.
One foot hung over the armrest.
His laptop rested on his chest.
Rachel gently moved it.
Owen opened one eye.
“Did you blow up the rich people?”
“Not all of them.”
He smiled sleepily.
“Good.”
Rachel sat beside him.
Owen was studying computer engineering at a community college while working evenings at an electronics repair shop.
Their father had been an electrician.
Their mother a school librarian.
Both were gone.
Their father had died in an industrial accident when Rachel was twenty-three.
Their mother followed three years later after a sudden illness.
Rachel had been Owen's guardian in every meaningful sense since he was thirteen.
She looked at him.
“You should sleep in your room.”
“You should stop working sixteen-hour shifts.”
“Fair.”
He sat up.
“Seriously. What happened?”
Rachel hesitated.
Then told him.
Not everything.
Enough.
Hidden cameras.
Unauthorized circuits.
A billionaire who had apparently been spying on himself without knowing it.
Owen stared.
“That sounds like a terrible movie.”
“I know.”
“Are you going back?”
“Yes.”
He frowned.
“Rach.”
“It’s a good contract.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She looked at him.
Owen was nineteen.
Smart.
Stubborn.
Far too observant.
“I’m being careful.”
He studied her.
Then nodded.
“Okay.”
Rachel stood.
At the doorway, he spoke again.
“Dad would’ve liked that you didn’t let them blame you.”
Rachel stopped.
Her throat tightened.
“Yeah.”
She smiled faintly.
“He would’ve.”
***
The next morning, Rachel returned to Reichi Tower with an independent engineer named Priya Shah.
Priya was thirty-eight, sharp-eyed, and allergic to nonsense.
She examined the contract.
Then looked at Rachel.
“You negotiated this?”
“Yes.”
Priya whistled.
“Either he’s desperate or you’re terrifying.”
“Both.”
They began on the mechanical floors.
The unauthorized circuits had been routed through protected distribution equipment serving emergency communications and security infrastructure.
That explained why they survived the ballroom shutdown.
But Rachel found something more disturbing.
The hidden network wasn't merely receiving power.
It was transmitting data through a separate fiber route.
A route that bypassed the building's documented network rooms.
Someone had constructed an entirely independent communications system inside Reichi Tower.
Priya stared at the tracing results.
“This is expensive.”
“How expensive?”
“Millions, over time.”
Rachel looked at the diagrams.
“Then someone had budget approval.”
Priya nodded.
“Or someone had enough control to hide the spending.”
Rachel thought of Vincent Caruso.
The operational executive.
The man who had suggested an outside contractor.
The man who had looked almost pleased when Rachel was blamed.
She photographed the cable labels.
Then noticed a small marking stamped onto one of the junction enclosures.
M-17.
She frowned.
The same marking appeared on three other boxes.
Priya leaned closer.
“Manufacturer?”
“Maybe.”
Rachel checked the equipment inventory.
No match.
Then she remembered something.
Her father's old notebooks.
He used to mark special jobs with his initials and the year.
M for Morgan.
17 for 2017.
But that was impossible.
Her father had died years before the first unauthorized installation was supposedly made.
Rachel stared at the marking.
Her stomach tightened.
She took another photograph.
Then called Owen.
“Can you check Dad's old job records?”
Owen sounded confused.
“Why?”
“Look for anything labeled M-17.”
Silence.
Then Owen said:
“Rachel.”
“What?”
“I saw that marking yesterday.”
Her pulse accelerated.
“Where?”
“On Dad's old toolbox.”
Rachel went still.
Owen continued.
“There was an envelope inside.”
“What envelope?”
“I didn't open it.”
“Why not?”
“Because it had your name on it.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Then asked:
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
“Don't leave.”
A pause.
“Rach?”
“Lock the door.”
She ended the call.
Priya watched her.
“What happened?”
Rachel looked at the unauthorized circuit.
Then at the marking.
May you like
For the first time, she understood that the hidden system might have existed long before she entered Reichi Tower.
And someone had connected it to her father's work.
