Chapter 3 - The Girl Blackbird Buried
Noah Rivers disappeared eleven minutes later.
Roman's men reached his apartment first.
His front door stood open.
His phone lay smashed in the hallway.
But there was no blood.
That was the only fact keeping Autumn functional.
Dominic took her downstairs through a private elevator while Roman coordinated search teams across Chicago.
Autumn barely noticed the armed men surrounding them.
“Where would Noah go?” Dominic asked.
“He wouldn't.”
“Friends?”
“Not many.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Enemies?”
Autumn laughed bitterly.
“Noah repairs air-conditioning systems. His biggest enemy is probably summer.”
Dominic watched her.
“You raised him?”
“Since I was twenty.”
That explained more than she intended.
A black SUV waited underground.
Autumn stopped.
“I’m not getting into that.”
“You have a better transportation plan?”
“My Honda.”
Roman appeared behind them.
“Your Honda currently has a tracking device attached underneath it.”
Autumn stared at him.
Roman held up a small black transmitter inside an evidence bag.
“We found it three minutes ago.”
She got into Dominic’s SUV.
For the next hour, Autumn used three laptops simultaneously while Dominic's organization searched traffic cameras, hospitals, airports and train stations.
Then Noah called.
Autumn answered instantly.
“Noah?”
“Autumn?”
His voice sounded confused.
She almost cried.
“Where are you?”
“At work. Why?”
She stared at Dominic.
“What?”
“I've been repairing a condenser at Lakeshore Medical since two.”
Autumn closed her eyes.
“Your apartment—”
“I left the door open because Mrs. Bell upstairs said she smelled gas. Fire department checked it.”
“And your phone?”
“This is my work phone. My regular one fell down the elevator shaft this morning.”
Autumn slowly lowered her head.
Nobody had kidnapped Noah.
Someone had manipulated ordinary events to terrify her.
Dominic understood immediately.
“They wanted you frightened.”
Autumn ended the call after making Noah promise to remain at the hospital.
Then she opened BLACKBIRD.
Inside were thousands of archived records.
Student IDs.
Financial transactions.
Government contracts.
And names.
Dominic leaned over her shoulder.
Autumn scrolled.
Then stopped.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Dr. Elias Voss.
Her former MIT professor.
Her mentor.
And the man who had testified against her.
Autumn stared at the screen.
“He's dead.”
Dominic looked at her.
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
Roman searched the name.
“According to this, he died in a boating accident off Cape Cod.”
Autumn's expression changed.
“Elias hated boats.”
Dominic sat opposite her.
“What exactly were you working on at MIT?”
Autumn hesitated.
“A predictive cybersecurity model. Something capable of identifying system vulnerabilities before an attack occurred.”
“How valuable?”
“At the time? Maybe millions.”
“And now?”
She looked at BLACKBIRD.
“Billions.”
The original sabotage suddenly made sense.
Autumn had not been expelled because somebody hated her.
She had been removed because somebody wanted what she created.
Dominic studied her for several seconds.
“What did Voss call your program?”
Autumn looked at him.
“Blackbird.”
Roman swore softly.
The archive wasn't named after the malware.
It was named after Autumn’s stolen work.
That evening, Dominic moved Autumn and Noah into a secured penthouse owned through one of his legitimate companies.
Noah took one look at Dominic and whispered to Autumn, “Please tell me you didn't start dating Batman.”
She almost laughed despite herself.
Dominic heard him.
“I’m standing right here.”
“That makes this significantly more awkward.”
For the first time all day, Autumn smiled.
Dominic noticed.
So did she.
The moment disappeared quickly.
They worked through the night.
At 1:17 a.m., Autumn found the first major twist.
Adrien Cross had indeed uploaded the malware.
Rossi had indeed paid him.
But somebody else had deposited the cryptocurrency into Rossi's account first.
A shell company.
Kestrel Dynamics.
Roman searched corporate records.
Its ownership disappeared behind layers of offshore entities.
Autumn dug deeper.
At 2:46 a.m., she found the original incorporation document.
She stopped.
Dominic noticed.
“Who owns it?”
Autumn turned the laptop.
The registered founder was Elias Voss.
Her supposedly dead professor.
A second file appeared.
Surveillance photographs.
Autumn at Giovanni's.
Autumn buying groceries.
Autumn visiting Noah.
Seven years of photographs.
Someone had followed her for seven years.
Dominic's jaw tightened.
“You were never forgotten.”
“No.”
Her voice barely worked.
“I was being monitored.”
“Why?”
Autumn continued scrolling.
Then she found a document labeled:
PHASE TWO — RIVERS ACTIVATION
The creation date was six months earlier.
She opened it.
Her photograph filled the screen.
Beneath it was a single sentence:
Subject must voluntarily reconnect Blackbird architecture to Kaine network.
Autumn stared at Dominic.
The room became completely silent.
Today had not been an accident.
Cross had not been the real attack.
Even Rossi had been manipulated.
The entire security collapse had been engineered to make Autumn reveal herself.
Dominic spoke first.
“They didn't attack me despite you being there.”
Autumn felt sick.
May you like
“They attacked you because I was there.”
And somewhere in Chicago, Elias Voss—the dead man who had stolen seven years of her life—had just gotten exactly what he wanted.
