Page 52 of Falling for the Grump Billionaire

The words hit like a physical blow, knocking the breath from my lungs.

“They’re gone?” I echo, my voice trembling. “Did they run, or—”

“We don’t know,” Adrian interrupts. “But from the state of the apartment, it doesn’t look voluntary.”

My legs feel weak, and Dominic steadies me with a firm hand on my arm.

“We need to see it,” I say, my voice laced with determination.

Dominic hesitates, his protectiveness warring with the urgency of the situation. Finally, he nods. “Adrian, meet us there. Bring backup.”

The Apartment

The apartment door hangs ajar, the splintered wood a stark reminder of violence. Inside, the scene is chaotic—papers scattered across the floor, drawers yanked out, a laptop smashed in the corner.

Adrian meets us at the door, his expression grim. “Whoever did this was thorough,” he says. “But they missed one thing.”

He leads us to a small safe hidden behind a loose wall panel. Inside is a single flash drive.

Dominic grabs it, his jaw tightening. “Let’s go.”

Back at the Penthouse

The flash drive’s contents churn my stomach. A single video file plays on the laptop, its stark imagery cutting through the silence.

The whistleblower appears, their face obscured by shadows. Their voice is low and urgent.

“If you’re watching this, it means they found me,”they say.“But you still have a chance. Follow the money. It will lead you to Mercer—and beyond him, to the one pulling the strings.”

The video ends abruptly, leaving the room in suffocating quiet.

“This just got a lot more dangerous,” Dominic growls, pacing the room like a caged predator. His tension radiates off him in waves.

I meet his gaze, my frustration boiling over. “That person—whoever they were—risked everything to send us this. And now they’re gone. What happens when Mercer figures out we have it?”

Dominic stops pacing, turning to me with piercing intensity. “That’s why we move carefully. Whoever’s behind this knows too much. They’ve already proven they’ll do whatever it takes to cover their tracks.”

“So, what?” I snap. “We wait until they come for us?”

“No,” he says firmly, stepping closer. “We follow the lead. But we don’t act until we’re sure. If we tip them off, we’ll lose any chance of finding the truth.”

The weight of his words settles over me as I watch him retreat to his office. The whistleblower’s warning echoes in my mind:"Follow the money. It will lead you to Mercer—and beyond him, to the one pulling the strings."

And for the first time, I realize just how deep this conspiracy goes—and how little time we have left to stop it.

The flash drive still sits on the table, its presence unnerving. The whistleblower’s warning plays on a loop in my mind.“Follow the money. It will lead you to Mercer—and beyond him, to the one pulling the strings.”

Dominic disappears into his office, shutting the door firmly behind him. The tension between us hasn’t faded—it’s simmering beneath the surface, a volatile undercurrent that neither of us is willing to confront right now. I glance at the laptop screen, the final frame of the video frozen in place. Whoever sent this risked everything to help us. And now, they’re gone.

The weight of their sacrifice hangs heavy in the air, fueling my determination. If they believed in the importance of this trail, then I owe it to them to see it through.

I scroll through the documents, cross-referencing the whistleblower’s files with the data I decrypted earlier. Each lineof text, every transaction, feels like a piece of a massive puzzle. The dummy corporations, the offshore accounts, the shadowy network of entities—there’s a pattern here, I can feel it.

But finding it is like trying to spot constellations in a storm.

An Unexpected Breakthrough

Hours slip by. The penthouse grows quieter as the city outside fades into the night. My back aches from leaning over the laptop, but I can’t stop. I pull up another spreadsheet, tracing another set of transactions.

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