Chapter 8 - Simon Voss Had Been Collecting Secrets About Adrian Too

The drive required federal forensic access.

Adrian waited sixteen hours.

He told himself impatience was irrational.

Then he checked his phone every ten minutes.

When investigators finally opened the MARTIN folder, it contained twelve years of material.

Photographs.

Travel records.

Medical appointment metadata.

Old emails obtained from compromised accounts.

Boardroom audio fragments.

Private dinners.

Adrian felt physically exposed.

One photograph showed him visiting his mother during cancer treatment.

Another captured him leaving therapy after her death.

Someone had labeled that image:

VULNERABILITY PERIOD.

Rebecca read over his shoulder.

“This is blackmail architecture.”

Adrian scrolled.

There were files on romantic relationships.

Two former girlfriends.

One ended because he worked too much.

The other because he refused to move to London.

Nothing criminal.

Nothing spectacular.

That almost made it worse.

Surveillance did not need scandal.

It needed enough private context to manipulate timing, pressure, or fear.

Then they found a folder labeled SUCCESSION.

Emails suggested Everett Shaw had commissioned monitoring when Adrian became CEO.

Everett wanted to know whether Adrian had addiction issues, affairs, mental health concerns, or financial weaknesses.

He found none useful.

So Simon kept collecting.

Years.

“Why?” Adrian asked.

The federal analyst answered, “Leverage ages well.”

Adrian felt sick.

He thought of Anna learning Marco may have watched her searches.

The same violation.

Different scale.

Different motive.

But the same theft.

He called her.

Then stopped before connecting.

He did not want to turn his shock into her emotional responsibility.

So he called Rebecca instead, though she was already in the room.

She raised an eyebrow.

“I almost called Anna.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“You looked at your phone like a human being instead of a CEO.”

He frowned.

“Was that criticism?”

“Observation.”

She closed the laptop.

“Go home.”

“I am home.”

“No. This is an office with a shower.”

She was right.

He returned to his apartment for the first time in two nights.

Sleep did not come.

At three, Anna called him.

Not because she knew.

Because Sophia had a fever and the secure residence’s after-hours clinic line was not answering.

Adrian sat up.

“Temperature?”

“102.4.”

“Breathing normal?”

“Yes.”

“Drinking?”

“Some.”

“Call emergency pediatric service. I’ll connect you.”

He used the hotel medical concierge program.

Then stopped.

“I can send a car.”

Anna hesitated.

“I can take a taxi.”

“Of course.”

He heard his own instinct to solve everything.

Money could make help feel like command.

He corrected.

“Tell me what you prefer.”

Silence.

Then Anna said, “A car would help.”

He sent one with a female security officer because Anna requested it.

Sophia had a viral infection.

Nothing serious.

By five, Anna texted that they were back.

Thank you.

Adrian replied:

Glad she’s okay.

He did not mention the drive.

In the morning, he changed his mind.

Not because he needed comfort.

Because withholding a security issue connected to Vantage could affect her safety.

He told Anna that Simon kept a personal surveillance file on him.

She was quiet.

“Now you know.”

“I know part of it.”

“No,” she said. “You know the feeling of finding out someone was present when you thought you were alone.”

That landed.

“Yes.”

“It makes every old memory feel touched.”

Exactly.

A photograph of his mother.

A therapy appointment.

A breakup.

All ordinary events transformed because someone watched them without permission.

Anna continued.

“You start asking whether they knew things because they knew you or because they watched.”

Adrian closed his eyes.

Marco’s strange timing.

Everett’s political pressure.

Thomas’s warnings.

How many people had seemed perceptive because they possessed stolen information?

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For understanding late.”

Anna answered softly.

“Late is still understanding.”

Their conversation ended there.

The FBI interviewed Simon in Toronto pending extradition.

He requested counsel.

Then offered an immediate proffer.

Like Caleb, he trusted records more than loyalty.

Simon admitted Vantage’s covert access had begun as “executive intelligence.”

Corporate disputes.

High-risk guests.

Labor organizing.

Divorce clients through private referrals.

He insisted he never ordered violence.

He simply sold information.

The phrase made Adrian furious.

Simply.

Information told Marco where Anna was.

Information told clients where women slept.

Information gave Everett leverage.

Simon described markets as though consequences belonged to buyers.

Then he named another participant.

Graham Shaw.

Everett’s son.

Graham handled private payments and recruited wealthy clients through legal and security circles.

The FBI searched Graham’s apartment.

Gone.

Unlike Simon, he had left before warrants became public.

Investigators tracked a flight.

Mexico City.

Then nothing.

Anna’s case suddenly carried an international fugitive at the edge of it.

But Marco remained the immediate threat.

His criminal trial was approaching.

His attorney filed to exclude Caleb’s audio recordings, arguing unlawful interception.

Prosecutors fought.

If excluded, the case remained strong.

If admitted, Marco’s own words could show calculated coercion.

The judge scheduled a hearing.

Anna prepared to testify about years of abuse.

Not only bruises.

Money.

Monitoring.

Threats.

Custody leverage.

The invisible architecture Marco used to keep her.

Adrian asked if she wanted him there.

She said no.

Then, after a pause:

Maybe outside.

So he waited in the courthouse hallway.

Not inside.

Not beside her.

Available.

The door opened after three hours.

Anna stepped out.

She looked exhausted.

Then she smiled.

“The recordings come in.”

Adrian stood.

“That’s good.”

“Yes.”

She looked at him for a moment.

Then did something neither of them expected.

She hugged him.

Briefly.

Tightly.

Then stepped back.

“Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

Her face changed.

Not fear.

Awareness.

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They both understood there was something between them now.

And neither of them was willing to let crisis decide what it meant.