Chapter 6 - The Enemy Inside the Company
Imani slept ninety minutes that night.
At 5:30 a.m., she was back in the office.
Marcus Hale had worked at Richardson Biotech for almost two years.
He was fifty-three, polished, respected, and excellent with investors. He had helped prepare the Sterling financial model. He knew the company’s cash position, ownership structure, expansion plans, and weaknesses.
And if Northline Strategy Group truly belonged to him, he had transferred fifty thousand dollars to Derek before the confidential file breach.
Patricia arrived carrying two coffees.
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Imani took the coffee.
“Tell me about Marcus.”
Patricia sat.
“Smart. Ambitious. Expensive.”
“You recruited him.”
“I did.”
“Did you trust him?”
Patricia’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
That hurt more than Imani expected.
Not because Patricia had been wrong.
Because Patricia rarely admitted being wrong.
Margaret arrived with Adrian at six.
Adrian placed a corporate registry report on the table.
“Northline Strategy Group was formed eighteen months ago. Marcus is not listed publicly, but the registered agent connects to his personal attorney, and two payments from Northline went to a property tax account in Marcus’s name.”
Margaret folded her arms.
“Enough for suspicion. Not enough for accusation.”
“What do we do?” Imani asked.
Adrian answered.
“Nothing dramatic.”
Patricia looked disappointed.
“I was hoping for dramatic.”
“We preserve logs. Restrict access quietly. Then we see what he does.”
At 8:03, Marcus walked into the office as usual.
Gray suit. Blue tie. Coffee in hand.
He smiled at Nicole.
“Morning.”
Nicole smiled back.
Nobody stopped him.
That was the plan.
Imani watched through the glass wall of her office as Marcus walked to the finance wing.
Every instinct told her to confront him.
Instead she waited.
At 8:17, Adrian’s phone vibrated.
“Restricted folder access attempt.”
Imani looked at him.
“Which folder?”
“Sterling governance review.”
Marcus tried again.
Denied.
Then he opened the company directory.
Then the vendor payment system.
Then, at 8:26, he connected an external drive.
Adrian looked at Margaret.
“Now?”
Margaret nodded.
Imani stood.
They entered Marcus’s office together.
He looked up.
“Morning.”
Imani closed the door.
“Take your hands off the keyboard.”
Marcus’s smile disappeared.
“What?”
“Hands off.”
He leaned back slowly.
Adrian stepped forward and disconnected the drive.
Marcus stood.
“You have no right to search my equipment.”
“The equipment belongs to Richardson Biotech,” Imani said.
“What is this?”
Margaret placed the Northline report on his desk.
Marcus looked at it.
His face did not change enough.
That was the answer.
Imani felt her stomach drop.
“Why did Northline Strategy Group pay my husband fifty thousand dollars?”
Marcus looked at Margaret.
“I want counsel.”
“You should get it,” Margaret said.
Imani stared at him.
“Did you pay Derek for my files?”
“I said I want counsel.”
“Did you?”
Marcus stood.
“You’re emotional.”
Patricia, who had entered behind them, laughed once.
“That was a stupid sentence.”
Marcus turned toward her.
“You brought me here.”
“And I’ll personally escort you out.”
Security arrived.
Marcus was suspended pending investigation.
His access was terminated before he reached the elevator.
By 10:00, Adrian’s team began imaging his workstation.
By noon, they found the first deleted chat thread.
Marcus had been talking to a senior strategist at ValeBridge for four months.
The messages were careful.
No one wrote steal.
No one wrote sabotage.
Instead they wrote words like leverage, timing, alternate outcome, and pressure point.
Then came Derek.
A message from Marcus to the ValeBridge strategist read:
The spouse may be useful. He knows almost nothing, but he is angry enough to dig.
Another message, six weeks later:
He wants money and recognition. Both are cheap compared with reopening Sterling.
Imani read the words twice.
She felt humiliated all over again.
Not because Derek had cheated.
Because Marcus had studied him and correctly identified his weakest points.
Money.
Recognition.
Resentment.
Derek had become useful to a stranger because he needed to feel important.
Margaret called Warren again.
This time, Warren did not defend Derek.
“Send me what you can lawfully share,” he said.
“Why?” Margaret asked.
“Because I’m withdrawing if he lied to me about this.”
“He did.”
“I need to hear him admit it.”
“You may be waiting a while.”
That afternoon, Derek arrived unexpectedly at the Richardson Biotech lobby.
Security stopped him.
He demanded to see Imani.
Nicole called upstairs.
Margaret said no.
Imani said yes.
They met in a ground-floor conference room with security outside and Margaret present.
Derek looked exhausted.
His tie was crooked.
For the first time in years, he did not look smug.
“Marcus used me,” he said.
Imani sat across from him.
“You accepted his money.”
“For research.”
“Research on me.”
“He said you were hiding assets.”
“You already believed that.”
“Yes.”
“So fifty thousand dollars helped you believe harder?”
His face tightened.
“I didn’t know he was working with ValeBridge.”
“You emailed ValeBridge yourself.”
“After Marcus introduced us.”
“You copied my files.”
“I was trying to prove what you had.”
“You stole from my computer.”
“I was your husband.”
The words came out before he could stop them.
Imani stared.
Then she smiled sadly.
“That sentence explains everything.”
Derek looked away.
“I didn’t think it would become this.”
“What did you think would happen?”
“I thought they would pressure Sterling. Sterling would negotiate with ValeBridge again. You’d lose some leverage. The company valuation would drop. Then the divorce would be fair.”
Margaret’s face went still.
Imani almost could not speak.
“You tried to reduce the value of my company so you could claim more of it?”
Derek rubbed his face.
“I was angry.”
“That is not an answer.”
“You humiliated me.”
Imani blinked.
“I humiliated you?”
“You let everyone think I was the successful one.”
“I let you think whatever you wanted because you never asked.”
“You hid everything.”
“No. I stopped explaining myself to a man who laughed every time I tried.”
Derek looked at her.
For a moment, Imani saw the younger man from the apartment with the moving boxes.
Then he said, “You could have told me how much money you were making.”
And the illusion disappeared.
“This was never about money,” she said quietly. “It was about whether you could see me when I wasn’t useful to your ego.”
Derek stood.
“Are you going to the police?”
Margaret answered.
“That decision may not be entirely hers.”
His face drained.
“What does that mean?”
“It means corporate counsel has reporting obligations. Sterling has counsel. ValeBridge has counsel. Your employer may also have concerns about your use of their systems.”
Derek looked at Imani.
“Please.”
She hated that word.
Not because it was weak.
Because for seven years she had used it while asking him for things he never considered important.
Please come to dinner on time.
Please ask me about school.
Please stop treating my work like a joke.
Now he finally understood what it felt like to need something from someone who had no reason to give it.
Imani stood.
“I’m not going to protect you from consequences you created.”
Derek’s eyes hardened again.
“So that’s it?”
“No.”
She opened the door.
“The divorce is still waiting.”
That evening, Adrian called from the lab.
“We found something else on Marcus’s machine.”
Imani closed her eyes.
“Of course you did.”
“A draft press release.”
“About what?”
“Your resignation.”
Imani sat up.
“My what?”
“It was prepared two weeks ago. Before graduation. Before the Sterling announcement.”
Adrian paused.
“Imani, they weren’t just trying to weaken the deal.”
May you like
His voice became very quiet.
“They were planning to force you out of your own company.”
