The Heart System

Chapter 423: Chapter 423

A street vendor on the corner was already setting up his hot dog stand, steam rising. Red-and-green New Year’s banners hung limp across the lampposts—half-hearted preparations that hadn’t quite caught fire yet. Fairy lights were strung along shop awnings, some already lit even though it was barely past eight. A group of teenagers hurried past in puffy jackets, one of them waving a sparkler that fizzed and popped against the falling snow. The city was trying to get festive, but it felt half-asleep, like it was still deciding whether to bother.

I turned left onto the coastal road. The sea was flat and slate-gray to our right, blending into the low clouds. Snowflakes melted the moment they touched the water, leaving tiny concentric ripples that vanished almost instantly.

"I should’ve had the office swept twice a month," Nala went on, quieter now. "Or installed motion sensors inside the room. Or—fuck—hired a private firm instead of relying on building security. Any one of those would’ve caught it before it recorded anything usable."

"We don’t know what it caught yet," I said. "Could be nothing. A few hours of empty office. Or it could be everything."

She laughed once—short, bitter. "Optimistic."

"Realistic," I corrected.

She rubbed her temple with two fingers. "If it uploads... if any of those files hit the dark web or some gossip forum... we’re back to square one. Another scandal. Another round of sponsors pulling out. Another quarter of damage control."

I glanced at her. Her jaw was tight, eyes fixed on the road ahead like she could will the traffic to part.

"We won’t let it get that far," I said. "We find out who planted it, we plug the leak, we spin whatever we need to spin. Same as always."

She didn’t answer right away. Just watched the snowflakes melt on the windshield, swept away by the wipers in rhythmic arcs.

The company building came into view after another ten minutes—tall glass-and-steel tower, the kind that looks expensive even when it’s half-empty. Holiday wreaths hung on the revolving doors, red ribbons fluttering weakly in the breeze. A few early employees were already trudging up the wide exterior stairs, heads down against the cold.

"Let’s go from behind," Nala said. "Into the underground parking lot."

"Got you."

I pulled into the underground garage entrance, flashed my pass at the reader, and eased the Jeep down the ramp. Tires hummed over the concrete. The garage was still mostly empty—only a handful of cars scattered across the rows.

I found a spot near the elevators, killed the engine. Silence settled heavy between us for a second.

Nala unbuckled first. "Let’s go."

We stepped out. The air down here was colder, tinged with exhaust and wet concrete. Snow had already dusted the Jeep’s hood like powdered sugar. I locked it with a chirp, and we walked toward the elevators.

The ride up was silent—fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, Nala staring at her reflection in the polished doors. When they opened onto the lobby, we stepped out into the familiar smell of coffee from the ground-floor café and the faint hum of early-morning HVAC.

A security guard in a navy uniform approached us immediately—mid-40s, short-cropped graying hair, polite but firm expression.

"Mrs. Nolin," he said, dipping his head. "Good morning. Just a heads-up—the elevators are on weekly maintenance starting in about twenty minutes. They’ll be offline for an hour or two. If you need to go up or down after that, use the service lift on the east side."

Nala gave a short nod—professional, distracted. "Thank you. We’ll manage."

I glanced at the guard’s name tag. "Are you the guy I talked to on the phone yesterday?"

He blinked, then shrugged. "No, sir. I didn’t talk to anyone yesterday. I came on shift at six this morning."

Nala turned to me, voice low. "He’s probably waiting in my office."

We didn’t wait for more. We headed straight for the wide staircase that curved up from the lobby to the executive floor. The railing was cold under my palm. Neither of us spoke. The only sound was our shoes on stone and the distant murmur of the lobby behind us.

We reached the top landing. Nala’s office suite was straight ahead—double glass doors etched with the company logo, her name in discreet gold lettering beneath it: Nala Nolin, CEO.

A security guard stood outside—black, heavyset, mid-50s, wearing the standard navy uniform and a peaked cap pulled low. He had the kind of build that suggested he’d spent years behind a desk rather than chasing suspects, but his eyes were sharp. He nodded once when he saw us approach.

Nala didn’t slow. I reached the doors first, swiped my access card, pushed them open. The three of us stepped inside.

Nala turned to him immediately. "Show me the cam."

The guard reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small black device—barely bigger than my thumb, matte finish, a tiny lens glinting under the office lights. He held it up between thumb and forefinger like it was radioactive.

Nala took it carefully, turned it over in her palm. "Where exactly?"

The guard pointed upward. "Corner of the ceiling, ma’am. Right above that painting. It was beeping—low battery warning. That’s how I noticed it during the sweep."

I followed his finger. The painting—a massive abstract swirl of blues and silvers—dominated the corner. The cam had to have been tucked on the top edge of the frame, lens peeking just over the canvas. Invisible from the floor unless you knew where to look.

"Fuck," I muttered.

Nala stared at the device for a long second, then looked up at the corner. "We need to trace which cloud the recordings were saved to. Pull the MAC address, check for any outbound connections, see if it uploaded anything overnight."

The guard shifted his weight. "I don’t know any of that stuff, ma’am. With due respect, I’m no technological nerd. I just found it and bagged it like protocol."

Nala nodded—tight, controlled. "Understood."

I looked at her. "What do we do?"

She exhaled slowly through her nose. "Maeve."

"The head doctor here?" I asked. "She knows about this stuff?"

"Yes." Nala’s voice was steady now, decision made. "She’s got a background in cybersecurity before she switched to psychiatry. I’ll talk to her and see if she can help us trace this."

I nodded. My eyes drifted back to the cam in her hand—small, innocuous, but loaded with potential disaster.

Whatever that thing had recorded wasn’t good.

All the times Nala and I had fucked in this office—bent over the desk, up against the window, on the couch during late-night "meetings" had to be on there. Every moan, every slap of skin, every whispered dirty word. If even a second of that leaked... it would be catastrophic. Not just for her career. For both of us.

We should’ve been more careful. We should’ve swept the room ourselves. We should’ve never let our guard down.

Nala closed her fingers around the device, knuckles white.

Fucking hell...

❤︎‬‪‪❤︎‬‪‪❤︎

I was on the break room balcony, leaning against the railing with a cigarette between my fingers. A couple of workers stood on the other side, talking quietly about shifts and weekend plans. The city lights stretched out in front of us, cold and distant.

I took one last drag, held it for a second, then flicked the cigarette into the ashtray mounted on the railing and crushed it out.

I was about to head back inside when I saw him again.

Same man. Standing just outside the parking lot entrance. Short. White beard. Hands in his coat pockets. Just standing there like he had nowhere else to be.

The guy who claimed he was Amelia’s father. Father or not, this was getting creepy.

"Damn idiot..." I muttered under my breath. "What does he want?"

The balcony door slid open behind me.

"Mr. Marlowe," a woman’s voice said.

I turned. One of the staff.

"Mrs. Nolin wants to see you."

"Right," I muttered. "I’ll be at her office in a minute."

"No, she’s in the head doctor’s office, sir," the woman corrected with a quick nod before heading back inside.

Head doctor’s office?

Maeve’s.

It had only been a couple hours. Had Maeve already traced where the hidden camera was storing the recordings? If she had, that was the first good news we’d gotten in a while.

Finally.

I stepped back inside, letting the balcony door slide shut, and headed toward the elevators. Maintenance must’ve wrapped up because they were working again. I rode up, then walked down the corridor to Maeve’s office.

I stopped in front of the door. Before I could knock, I heard raised voices from inside.

Nala. Angry.

I opened the door and stepped in.

Maeve was seated behind her desk, posture straight but tense. Nala stood in front of it, both hands pressed flat against the surface, leaning forward slightly.

"Why?" Nala demanded. "I know you can do it, Maeve."

"Mrs. Nolin," Maeve said carefully, "I left those years behind me. I wouldn’t be able to write a basic Python script if you asked. I forgot all of it."

"Don’t bullshit me," Nala shot back. "I know you can. You just won’t try."

"Try?" Maeve’s voice tightened. "I’m telling you the truth. I don’t have it in me anymore."

"What’s going on?" I asked, stepping closer to Nala.

"She refuses to trace the hidden camera to its cloud storage," Nala said without looking at me.

"Oh." I glanced at Maeve. "Why? We really need those recordings if we want to figure out who planted it."

"I already told Mrs. Nolin," Maeve said, cutting me off. "I left that life behind. I’m not going back to it."

Nala straightened and exhaled sharply, then turned toward me. Her voice dropped. "We need another option."

"Hey," I said, thinking quickly. "I know a guy. Tuck. Old buddy. He might not be the one directly, but he’ll know someone who can handle this kind of thing. You want me to reach out?"

She nodded immediately. "I’ll take whatever I can get."

"Alright. I’ll call him and see what he says."

"Mm."

I looked at Maeve and gave her a small, polite smile. "Thanks for your time, anyway."

She just nodded.

"Come on," I said to Nala. "Let’s go."