Episode 4
1156 Words
Everywhere and everything was too quiet.
Cruz didn’t trust silence.
It was too clean, too controlled. Too quiet meant something was moving under the surface.
And lately, everything was too quiet.
He sat in his office in Steelhaven, the skyline stretching behind him, untouched. The city kept pulsing like nothing was wrong.
But something was.
He’d felt it since the leak last week. Just a sliver of information — barely enough to shake stocks. But it was the kind of leak that spoke to someone inside.
Someone who knew exactly where to cut.
David walked in without knocking.
Cruz looked up. “You’re late.”
David didn’t answer. He dropped a folder on the desk. “Preliminary review from legal. Nothing flagged.”
Cruz opened it without looking at him. Flipped through the first two pages.
“This is weak,” he said. “PR needs to scrub it before we release anything.”
“They already have.”
Cruz looked up, sharp. “Then they missed the tone. This doesn’t sound confident. It sounds like we’re apologizing.”
“Maybe we should,” David said quietly.
The words hung in the air.
Cruz’s eyes narrowed.
“What was that?”
David didn’t flinch. “If we pretend nothing happened, it’ll look like we’re hiding. We need to shift tone. Look human.”
Cruz stared at him. “You’ve been spending too much time with the interns.”
David shrugged. “Just giving you options.”
“You’re giving me weakness.”
They stared at each other across the desk.
Then Cruz leaned back, eyes cold now. “You know what the real problem is?”
David didn’t answer.
“Someone’s playing a long game,” Cruz said. “They’re not leaking at random. They’re deliberate. They know things.”
“Any idea who?”
Cruz held his gaze. “If I did, they’d already be buried.”
Hayley waited in the corridor just outside.
She wasn’t eavesdropping. Not really.
But she lingered. Just enough to catch tones. Tension. Cruz’s voice rising. David’s quieter one cutting through. She couldn’t hear words, but she heard... strain.
She didn’t like it.
The office door opened. David stepped out, face unreadable. He saw her and paused.
“You waiting for him?” he asked.
“I wanted to check on the gala arrangements.”
David nodded once. Then said nothing.
But as he walked past, Hayley felt a chill pass with him.
He’d changed lately. Too quiet. Too calm.
Like he knew something he wasn’t saying.
That night, Elena stood in a parking garage in Ironvale, level three. Empty but not abandoned. Lights flickered overhead, buzzing softly.
A man approached from the stairwell.
Dr. Gustavo. Nervous, coat too thin for the cold, eyes darting.
“You shouldn’t have come,” he said.
“You said you had something.”
He hesitated, looked over his shoulder. Then pulled a small envelope from inside his coat.
“These are the medical reports from 2016. Internal studies. Cruz Ventures buried them.”
She took the envelope.
“They ran controlled trials in low-income neighborhoods. Mostly undocumented residents. No one asked questions.”
“How many people?”
“Over two hundred. Nearly all of them developed complications within three years. Mostly cancers. A few died before trial periods ended.”
“And the rest?”
“They were paid off. Or disappeared.”
Elena nodded. Slipped the envelope into her coat.
Gustavo lingered.
“They’ll come for me,” he said.
“You’re helping expose the truth.”
He looked tired. “That doesn’t keep you safe.”
“No,” she said. “It doesn’t.”
He left without another word.
Elena waited a full minute before turning.
In the distance, a car engine started. She didn’t move.
She already knew she was being followed.
Back at Cruz Ventures, Cruz stood in front of a wall of screens in his private surveillance room. He rarely used it himself. That was what other people were for.
But this—this was personal now.
The footage played again. A figure in a hoodie moving through the parking garage.
He hit pause.
Zoomed in.
The face was shadowed, barely visible.
But the stance. The shape of the walk.
He knew that body.
“Elena,” he whispered.
He hadn’t seen her in four years.
But you don’t forget someone you once loved enough to destroy.
---
He turned to Marcus, the private security head.
“I want every asset focused. Every camera, every facial recognition hit from the last two weeks. Find her.”
“What if it leaks back to law enforcement?” Marcus asked.
Cruz’s voice dropped. “Then make sure it doesn’t.”
The next day, David stood in the elevator, watching the numbers tick up.
His phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
He answered without speaking.
Elena’s voice came through. Quiet. Direct.
“He knows I’m out.”
“I figured.”
“He’s using the internal security grid. Cameras. Pattern tracking.”
“I’ll handle it,” David said.
“You can’t.”
“Try me.”
There was a pause.
Then she said, “You need to look at the company’s 2016 pilot funding. Line item 47. It’s the one Cruz had sealed.”
“How do you know about that?”
“I don’t,” she said. “But I know how many people died.”
Then the line went dead.
That night, Hayley stood in the penthouse balcony, staring out at the city.
Cruz walked up behind her.
“You’re quiet lately,” he said.
She smiled faintly. “Just tired. All these events.”
“You’re doing well,” he said.
“Thanks.”
She turned to face him. “Do you trust me?”
He studied her. “Why?”
She shrugged. “You’ve been... distant. Cold.”
He didn’t answer.
So she tried again.
“Are you hiding something from me?”
This time, he smiled.
“Everyone hides something, Hayley.”
David sat alone in his office.
The door was closed. The lights low.
He stared at the line item Elena had mentioned.
Buried in a sea of numbers.
“Pilot Program—Ironvale Trial.”
Authorized by Cruz. Disguised under environmental testing.
The files were locked, but he had access.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard.
Then he clicked.
The first report opened.
And what he saw made his stomach turn.
Outside the building, a black sedan pulled up across the street from Cruz Ventures.
Inside, Agent Paz watched through the windshield. No movement. No backup. Just her.
She lit a cigarette she wouldn’t smoke.
Then she pulled a crumpled photo from her jacket. Two faces. A woman and a child.
She whispered something under her breath, then looked up at the glowing Cruz Ventures logo across the street.
“Time to bleed.”
She opened the door and stepped into the dark.
- Writer
