I snapped the photo. It was perfectly clear. The stolen medical file, housed exactly where he kept his corporate documents.
I sat back up and fastened my seatbelt across my lap, resting my hands over the solid, protective weight of my stomach. The plane banked sharply, the gray clouds of the Pacific Northwest rushing past the reinforced acrylic window.
Brad locked his tablet screen and turned to me, offering a paternal, entirely fake smile. "It's the right choice, Maya. You’ll thank me when you're resting at home."
He expected me to break. He expected me to walk off this plane, hand over the Seattle contract, and quietly fade into the background of a basement office so he could take the glory. But as the landing gear deployed with a heavy mechanical thud beneath our feet, the fear that had paralyzed me for the last two hours evaporated, replaced by a cold, precise anger.
I wasn't going to step down. I wasn't going to let him steal my contract, my livelihood, or my dignity. I had the digital forgery. I had the photographic proof of possession. Waiting for HR to handle him gently was no longer an option. Silence would only let him destroy me on his own timeline.
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
"I'll have my assistant email you the transition documents before dinner," Brad said, unbuckling his belt with a sharp metallic click. He reached down and retrieved his custom leather briefcase from the floor, the heavy brass buckles glinting under the harsh overhead cabin lights. The manila envelope holding my stolen medical records was tucked securely in the side pocket, partially hidden but still violently present.
"You don't need to come to the Rainier Club tonight," he continued, adjusting his silk tie. "Marcus Vance is an old-school logistics guy. He appreciates a lean, decisive executive presence. I'll tell him you experienced some severe flight sickness and needed to rest. It fits the narrative perfectly."
He was officially cutting me out of the client introduction. The Rainier Club dinner wasn't just a meal; it was the formal handover protocol for the ten-million-dollar account I had spent eight months building from scratch. By isolating me in a hotel room while he dined with the Pacific Freight CEO, Brad was establishing himself as the sole architectural authority on the project.
"I understand," I said, keeping my voice carefully modulated. I looked down at my hands, deliberately projecting the image of a defeated, terrified subordinate. If I fought him now, here in the narrow aisle of First Class, he would realize I was preparing a counter-strike. He might shred the physical file before I could prove he had it. I needed him arrogant. I needed him entirely confident that his extortion had worked.
We walked in silence through the busy terminal. Brad’s stride was long and brisk, forcing me to push myself to keep up while dragging my heavy carry-on. He didn't offer to help. When we reached the executive car service lane outside baggage claim, a black Lincoln Navigator was already idling at the curb, the driver holding a digital placard with Brad’s name.
Brad turned to me, the damp Pacific Northwest air swirling between us. "Take a taxi to the Fairmont, Maya. Check into your room, order whatever you want on the corporate card, and review the audit transfer. If it's digitally signed by the time I get back from dinner, HR processes your early medical leave in the morning, and you keep your base health benefits."
He framed it as a corporate lifeline. It was a financial execution.
"Have a good dinner, Brad," I said quietly.
He offered that same paternal, chilling smile, slid into the warm interior of the SUV, and the driver pulled away, merging into the heavy evening traffic.
I didn't walk toward the taxi stand. Instead, I dragged my suitcase to an empty row of metal chairs near carousel four, sat down on the cold steel, and unzipped my laptop bag. I couldn't afford to waste the thirty-minute transit time to the hotel. I needed the second half of the proof before Brad’s assistant locked me out of the firm's administrative servers entirely.
I balanced the laptop on my knees and connected to the airport's premium Wi-Fi network, immediately routing my connection through our corporate VPN. The loading lag was agonizing. I watched the green authentication bar stall at seventy percent for two full minutes before finally clicking through to the Chicago headquarters intranet.
As a Director-level project manager, I possessed elevated administrative access to the firm's vendor payment directories. That included the secure digital vault where all executive signature files were housed. Brad assumed I was just a mid-level logistics coordinator, someone who only looked at shipping manifests and freight schedules. He forgot that to build a ten-million-dollar automated supply chain, I had mapped the entire digital architecture of our firm's financial approval process.
I bypassed the standard user interface and opened the raw directory tree. I navigated down through the dense corporate folders: Drive_H: \Financial\Authorizations\Signatures.
I found my file: Jenkins_M_Sig_Approved. png.
I didn't open the image. Instead, I right-clicked the file name and pulled up the system metadata and the internal server access logs. Every time a secure asset was opened, copied, or applied to a document on the corporate network, the server automatically recorded the keystroke terminal and the employee ID. It was an immutable background process designed to prevent embezzlement.