CHAPTER 2 — The Eyes Behind the Glass
CHAPTER 2 — The Eyes Behind the Glass
The message disappeared from my screen almost as quickly as it had appeared.
Take the money and leave while you still can.
No number.
No name.
Just a warning.
My pulse hammered against my ribs as I slowly lifted my head.
Beyond the glass wall surrounding the executive offices, dozens of employees moved from desk to desk with practiced confidence. They looked ordinary—people carrying coffee cups, discussing reports, laughing over something on a tablet.
Except for one.
A man in a navy suit wasn't pretending to work.
He was staring directly at me.
The second our eyes met, he turned and disappeared into the hallway.
I stood so quickly that my chair rolled backward.
"Miss Carter?"
The receptionist's voice stopped me.
"Mr. Walker will see you now."
Charles Walker's office occupied the entire corner of the forty-second floor.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the city.
The room itself was almost empty.
No family photographs.
No trophies.
Only books, a massive wooden desk, and a framed newspaper clipping that simply read:
BIOTECH SOLUTIONS SAVES THOUSANDS AFTER PANDEMIC BREAKTHROUGH.
Charles stood beside the window with his hands in his pockets.
In person, he looked even colder than the articles had suggested.
Tall.
Perfectly tailored charcoal suit.
Silver beginning to appear at his temples.
The expression of a man who had forgotten how to smile years ago.
Without turning around, he said quietly,
"You received the message."
It wasn't a question.
"You knew?"
"I expected it."
I felt my stomach tighten.
"You expected someone to threaten me?"
Finally, he faced me.
"I expected them to notice you."
He motioned toward the chair opposite his desk.
"I need to know exactly what you saw."
I opened the accounting program again.
"The vendor called MedCore Logistics."
Charles nodded once.
"What about it?"
"The invoices are legitimate."
"They are."
"But the routing codes aren't."
His eyebrows lifted ever so slightly.
I continued.
"Someone duplicated inactive supplier IDs and rerouted the payments into a secondary account disguised as laboratory maintenance expenses."
Silence.
Charles slowly crossed the room.
"How much?"
"I only checked one quarter."
I swallowed.
"Approximately eleven point eight million dollars."
His jaw tightened.
"And if it goes back three years..."
I finished the sentence.
"...it's probably over one hundred million."
For several seconds neither of us spoke.
Then Charles whispered something that made my blood run cold.
"I thought it was closer to fifty."
The office door burst open.
A woman in her fifties entered without knocking.
Elegant.
Confident.
Sharp blue eyes.
"Charles."
She stopped the moment she noticed me.
"This must be Emily."
I blinked.
"You know my name?"
She smiled politely.
"I'm Clara Bennett."
The woman Charles had told me to ask for.
She extended her hand.
"I've heard wonderful things about your work."
I hadn't worked in diagnostics for almost four years.
No one had been saying wonderful things about me.
Charles remained expressionless.
"Clara oversees internal operations."
Something about the way he said oversees sounded carefully chosen.
Almost rehearsed.
Clara glanced toward my sleeping son in the nursery camera displayed on one of the office monitors.
"He's beautiful."
My protective instincts flared immediately.
"You've seen my baby?"
"The nursery has cameras for security."
She smiled again.
"Nothing unusual."
Maybe.
But I suddenly hated that strangers had access to my child.
Charles noticed the look on my face.
"Emily."
His voice was calm.
"No one enters that room without authorization."
Clara looked at him.
"Of course."
The tension between them lasted less than a second.
But it was enough.
They didn't trust each other.
Later that afternoon I returned to the accounting department.
The same workstation.
The same files.
This time, however, I noticed something I had missed before.
Every fraudulent transaction required approval from two executives.
One digital signature belonged to the Chief Financial Officer.
The second belonged to...
Charles Walker.
I froze.
No.
That couldn't be right.
Unless...
Either Charles himself had approved every stolen dollar...
...or someone had successfully forged the billionaire's encrypted authorization.
Both possibilities were terrifying.
I quietly copied the approval logs onto an encrypted drive Clara had given me earlier.
The instant the file finished downloading, my computer screen went black.
A single sentence appeared in white letters.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT WHEN WE WARNED YOU.
The keyboard stopped responding.
Then another line appeared.
YOUR SON IS SAFE... FOR NOW.
Every muscle in my body locked.
Someone wasn't threatening my career.
They were threatening Ethan.
I grabbed my phone and ran.
The nursery was only twenty yards away.
It felt like two miles.
When I reached the door, it was open.
The crib was empty.
My heart stopped.
"Ethan!"
A nurse looked up from the hallway.
"Miss Carter?"
She pointed toward the pediatric examination room.
"The baby's fine. Mr. Walker requested a routine medical checkup."
My knees nearly gave out beneath me.
I rushed inside.
Ethan lay peacefully on a soft blanket while a pediatrician checked his heartbeat.
Charles stood nearby with folded arms.
The moment he saw my face, he knew.
"What happened?"
I showed him the message.
For the first time since we'd met...
The billionaire lost control.
His face drained of color.
"Everyone out."
The room emptied immediately.
Charles locked the door himself.
Then he looked at me with an intensity that made every hair on my arms stand up.
"They've crossed a line."
"Who?"
He hesitated.
Long enough for me to realize the truth.
He already had suspects.
Maybe names.
Maybe evidence.
He simply hadn't wanted to admit how dangerous this really was.
Finally, he spoke.
"The people stealing from my company..."
His voice became almost a whisper.
"...are the same people who murdered my wife three years ago."
The room fell silent.
May you like
Outside the glass walls, employees continued their normal workday, completely unaware that somewhere among them walked a killer...
...and that Ethan and I had just become the next targets.
