The words blur before my eyes as footsteps thunder up the stairs. Alex moves faster than I thought possible, snatching up the letter while pulling me toward the window. The night air whips through my hair, carrying the wail of more approaching sirens. His proximity makes my heart race, just like those moments in his office when we’d come so close to crossing the line between employer and employee. Three stories below, the alley disappears into shadows, somewhere down there the USB drive lies waiting with its own cache of secrets.
“Don’t be stupid,” James calls out, but there’s something different in his voice now. Fear, maybe. Or regret. The bitterness that’s haunted him since their father’s will was read edges every word. The years of mentorship, of family dinners and holiday celebrati
