Please look under my coat before she sees you!
The screen of my old laptop glowed in the dimness of my study. The frequency scanner’s report still vibrated in my head: *Apex Titan Security*.
I typed the name into the state corporate registry search. A list of shell companies, subsidiaries, and holding groups popped up, all linked like a spiderweb.
My fingers flew over the keyboard, cross-referencing every name, every address, every listed director against the files Sarah had been working on.
Eight months ago, her desk had been covered in similar printouts. Public records, financial disclosures, campaign donor lists.
She’d called it “her puzzle.” She was always so good at puzzles.
“Just some weird anomalies, Luc,” she’d said, brushing a strand of hair from her eyes. “Little payments to unknown vendors, nothing adding up.”
Now, looking at the Apex Titan filings, a familiar name jumped out at me. *Marcus Fiske*.
I remembered Sarah mentioning him. Not directly in connection to Evelyn, but as a “shadowy figure” involved in obscure state contracts.
I clicked on his profile. CEO of Apex Titan Security. Listed address in a sprawling industrial park outside Dallas.
Then, a detail in the Apex Titan corporate structure made my breath catch. A small, almost invisible footnote under a subsidiary named “Texas Road Safety Initiatives.”
They had developed experimental “vehicle safety modules” for state vehicles. “Preventative maintenance systems,” the document called them.
A cold, hard knot formed in my stomach. Sarah’s accident.
It wasn’t just a crash. It was a single-vehicle crash on an isolated stretch of Highway 71, eight months ago. The police report mentioned a “sudden, inexplicable brake failure.”
No skid marks. No other cars involved. Just her sedan, veering off the road and hitting an oak tree.
I pulled up the archived news reports, the old police statement. “Mechanical malfunction,” they’d called it. No further investigation. Just a tragic accident.
But Sarah hadn’t just been “investigating anomalies.” She’d been looking into Evelyn’s campaign finance.
She’d called me from the road, just an hour before it happened. “Luc, I think I’ve got something huge. This isn’t just a glitch. This is organized.”
She’d sounded excited, breathless. So full of life.
I stared at the screen, at the words “vehicle safety modules.” Apex Titan. Evelyn’s security. Maya’s collar.
The pieces slammed together, brutal and unforgiving.
They didn’t just monitor Maya. They silenced Sarah.
Apex Titan Security. The company monitoring my eight-year-old sister with an illegal collar, the same company that developed “safety modules.” The company whose CEO was a “shadowy figure” Sarah had quietly researched.
They hadn’t *jammed* her brakes in the traditional sense. They had jammed her *sensors*. They’d built a system into state vehicles, a system to control.
Sarah had been driving her state-issued vehicle that day. One of the models Apex Titan had retrofitted for “enhanced safety.”
It wasn’t brake failure. It was a remote override.
A deliberate, targeted attack. She hadn’t crashed. She had been *killed*.
The air felt thin, sharp. The grief for Sarah, which had dulled to a constant ache, ripped open into a fresh, searing wound.
Maya wasn’t just wearing a collar to keep her quiet. She was a living testament to Evelyn’s willingness to erase anyone who got in her way.
And Sarah had been the first.
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