POV: ALARIC
Norlan didn't answer immediately. He glanced toward the door like he was making sure we were still alone. Then he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a sleek, matte-black flash drive.
He held it up between two fingers. "Encrypted. Triple-layered. You'd need a god to crack it… or me."
I walked up to him, took it without a word, but didn't look at it yet. I stared at him instead… The man who used to hack into our school's database just to change his grades and prank professors. I used to think it was all fun back then. But I never knew he'd take it so seriously that he'd take it to be a career.
"You sure it's solid?" I asked in a low voice.
Norlan nodded slowly. "It's everything. Offshore accounts. Tax evasion. Proxy companies tied to human smuggling rings in the Balkans. He thought he could scrub it clean. But that dumb fuck hired some of my old crew two years ago. I know their coding like the back of my hand."
