Chapter 7 - The Man Beneath the Tattoos|
By Monday morning, Laurel had spoken to three attorneys, two investigators, and one police detective.
She hadn't spoken to Preston.
That was deliberate.
Her attorney, Carmen Price, had made one thing very clear.
“Do not give him a private conversation he can distort.”
Carmen was a sharp-eyed Chicago attorney who specialized in employment disputes and corporate misconduct.
She had listened without interrupting while Laurel described the gala, the suspension, the threatening photograph, and the documents bearing her name.
Then Carmen had closed her notebook.
“You're not imagining a pattern,” she said.
Laurel looked exhausted.
“Can we prove it?”
“Some of it.”
“Which parts?”
“The attempted platform change, the suspicious approval documents, and the messages you received.”
Carmen leaned forward.
“The rest requires evidence.”
Laurel nodded.
She was learning that justice rarely arrived in one glorious moment.
Usually, it came through paperwork.
And phone calls.
And the exhausting discipline of not saying something merely because it felt true.
By afternoon, Dr. Mercer's team had confirmed that Brightstep's emergency assistance records remained protected.
The attempted connection had been blocked before the scheduled export.
No unauthorized disclosure of those records had been confirmed.
Laurel felt her first genuine relief in days.
But the forged authorization remained an enormous problem.
Someone had created a document that appeared to grant Wade Meridian access to Brightstep's service information.
And someone had signed it using Laurel's name.
That evening, Roman invited her to meet at a small diner overlooking the Chicago River.
Laurel nearly declined.
She didn't want dinner to look like payment for his help.
Roman apparently understood.
“It's not a business meeting,” he'd said.
“Then what is it?”
“Two people eating food that doesn't come with a legal disclaimer.”
She had laughed.
Then she'd said yes.
The diner was nearly empty when she arrived.
Roman sat in a corner booth wearing dark jeans and a charcoal sweater with the sleeves pushed to his elbows.
Without his suit jacket, the tattoos were impossible to miss.
A compass covered his right hand.
Roses and geometric lines climbed his forearms.
There were dates inked near his wrist.
And something written in small letters beneath a scar.
Laurel slid into the booth.
“You look different.”
Roman glanced down at his sweater.
“Less expensive?”
“Less likely to throw someone through a wall.”
He smiled.
“That's good.”
“Is it?”
“Depends on the wall.”
Laurel laughed before she could stop herself.
For the next twenty minutes, they talked about ordinary things.
Bad Chicago winters.
The complicated politics of deep-dish pizza.
The way people who had never planned an event believed table arrangements happened through magic.
Roman told her he had once worked as a firefighter.
Laurel looked at his hands.
“That explains a few things.”
“Like what?”
“The scars.”
“And the charming personality?”
“That remains unexplained.”
He grinned.
Then his expression softened.
“I left after a warehouse collapse.”
Laurel stopped smiling.
“Were you injured?”
“Some.”
He turned his coffee cup.
“My partner was killed.”
She didn't interrupt.
Roman looked toward the window.
“His name was Daniel Ortiz.”
“He was thirty-two.”
“We'd worked together for almost eight years.”
Laurel waited.
“After that, I couldn't walk into another burning building without hearing the roof come down.”
His voice remained steady.
But she could hear the effort beneath it.
“So I left.”
“Was that difficult?”
“Hardest decision I ever made.”
He looked at her.
“For a long time, I thought leaving meant I'd failed him.”
Laurel's chest tightened.
“What changed?”
“Daniel's mother.”
Roman smiled faintly.
“She told me her son hadn't died so I could spend the rest of my life proving I deserved to survive.”
Laurel swallowed.
“And the compass?”
He held out his hand.
“Daniel had one on his key chain.”
She examined the tattoo.
The compass was surrounded by intricate lines.
Beneath it were four words.
Find your way home.
“Beautiful,” she whispered.
Roman looked at her.
“It's supposed to remind me that I still have somewhere to go.”
Laurel gently touched the edge of the tattoo.
He didn't move.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Laurel withdrew her hand.
“I'm sorry about Daniel.”
“Thank you.”
She looked down at her coffee.
“I think I lost myself with Preston.”
Roman didn't interrupt.
“I kept making my life smaller so his could be bigger.”
Her voice trembled.
“And when he left, I couldn't figure out why I felt relieved and heartbroken at the same time.”
Roman studied her.
“Because loving someone and being treated well aren't the same thing.”
Laurel looked up.
The words settled somewhere deep.
She had been told for years that Preston's ambition justified his selfishness.
That his pressure excused his cruelty.
That her unhappiness was the price of being beside someone destined for greatness.
Roman wasn't offering a complicated explanation.
He was offering the simplest truth.
Someone who loved her shouldn't have needed to diminish her.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from June.
You need to see this.
Laurel opened the attachment.
It was a photograph of a printed access log.
June had obtained it through the Halcyon's authorized incident-review process.
At 7:58 p.m. on gala night, someone had accessed the event's technical control room.
At 8:03, an administrator had approved the new donation platform.
The badge number belonged to Caleb Sutter.
But the electronic approval carried Laurel's name.
Roman leaned closer.
“That's useful.”
“Because I was in the ballroom.”
“Exactly.”
Laurel looked at the screen.
“June has the security footage.”
Before Roman could respond, another message arrived.
There's something else.
A second photograph appeared.
This one showed the administrative authorization trail.
Beneath Caleb's access record was another corporate credential.
A name neither Laurel nor June recognized.
GIDEON SHAW — NORTHLINE HOLDINGS.
Roman's expression changed instantly.
Laurel noticed.
“Who is Gideon Shaw?”
Roman didn't answer immediately.
Then he looked toward the dark river.
“Elias North's executive vice president of strategic investments.”
Laurel felt the warmth leave the booth.
“Is he involved?”
Roman's jaw tightened.
“He shouldn't have been anywhere near that system.”
Laurel leaned back.
“So this isn't just Preston and Caleb.”
Roman looked at the evidence again.
“No.”
May you like
His voice was grim.
“And now we need to find out how far up this goes.”
