Page 81 of My Brother's Billionaire Best Friends
We laugh. All of us. It’s short and sharp and necessary. But the moment doesn’t last long. Because Harrison’s face shifts. Subtle. But I see it. Like a shadow passes behind his eyes.
He straightens. Reaches into his jacket. Pulls out his phone again. And I know something’s coming. Something heavier than Vanessa. Harrison’s thumb moves across the screen like he’s skimming something for the fifth time just to be sure. His jaw’s tight. His shoulders tense.
That alone tells me more than I want to know. “What is it?”
He doesn’t look up. “Give me a second.”
Jack stands. “You’ve had hours.”
“Yeah, well, I wanted to be certain before I opened my mouth.”
Parker watches him closely, expression unreadable now—exhausted, maybe. Or bracing for impact.
Harrison sighs, finally tucking his phone away and crossing his arms. “My guys finally got a clean trace on the elevator audio.”
I straighten. “And?”
“It didn’t come from our system.”
Jack frowns. “You sure?”
“We triple-checked. VT’s camera feeds were buggy that night, remember? Surveillance was already spotty because of the building’s rolling grid issues. Our internal footage wasn’t usable.”
“So then…?”
“It came from a third-party device. Something planted in the elevator. Battery-powered. Low-range transmission. No cloud-based backup.”
“A bug?” I ask.
He nods.
“Jesus,” Parker whispers.
“Someone planted it. Set it to record. Then pulled it after the fact and leaked the clip in just the right window to make it look like a VT internal failure. All signs point to Icon PR.”
My stomach tightens. “You’re certain.”
“Enough to build a case. We’ve got IP traces, metadata routing through shell domains they’ve used before, and we matched time stamps on some of Vanessa’s past digital correspondence. Whoever leaked it used her access channels. Her schedule. Her team.”
I smile. It’s slow. Sharp. A little too wide. “This is actionable.”
Jack’s eyes light up. “We can bury them.”
Parker’s voice cuts in, soft but steady. “You’re sure it was Vanessa?”
Harrison glances at her. “No. But I’m sure it was Icon and her logins.”
“She’s not their only knife,” I say. “Just the one that used to be aimed at me.”
“And now?” Parker asks. I look at her. Now they aimed at her. At all of us. And missed. But not for lack of trying.
“I’ve been waiting for something like this,” I say, pacing a little. “They’ve been circling our client base for months. Spinning subtle attacks, poisoning vendor relationships, nudging donors. We couldn’t hit back without proof.”
“And now we have it,” Jack says.
“We do.” I stop pacing. Look at Harrison. He’s not smiling. Which is the part that catches me. Heshouldbe. “What?”
He doesn’t answer. Just reaches into his inside jacket pocket and pulls out a folded printout. Black and white. Crisp. He holds it for a second, gulps, then passes it to me.
