As Miller pivoted to grab me, a blinding pair of high beams rounded the corner of Elm Street, roaring toward us. Tires screeched. A sleek, black SUV tore down the street and slammed its brakes right next to us. The passenger door flew open, and a voice screamed from the darkness of the interior:

“Get in if you want to live!”

I didn’t think. I scrambled off the ground, leaving my phone behind, and dove headfirst into the backseat of the mysterious SUV. As the door slammed shut and the driver hit the gas, I looked out the rearview window. Miller wasn’t chasing us. He was standing under the streetlamp, calmly picking up my phone, dialing a number on his own radio. He was calling it in. We were now fleeing suspects.

But when I turned around to thank my savior, the breath caught in my throat. Sitting in the driver’s seat, bleeding from a deep cut on his forehead but very much alive, was Leo. My missing roommate.

“Leo?!” I choked out, gripping the headrest of the front seat as the SUV rocketed through the midnight streets of Seattle. “You’re alive? Everyone thinks you’re dead! The police—”

“The police are the ones who tried to kill me, Marcus!” Leo yelled over the roaring engine, taking a sharp left turn that threw me against the door. He checked his mirrors frantically. “Miller isn’t just a dirty cop. He runs a high-end luxury vehicle theft ring. They use a proprietary GPS-cloning software to steal cars straight out of dealerships and shipping ports. I was doing the IT work for them. I thought it was just a sketchy tech startup until I saw a body in one of their warehouses.”

The world tilted on its axis. My quiet, nerdy roommate who played video games until 3 AM was caught up in a multi-million dollar criminal empire.

“I stole the hard drive containing their entire network ledger, their client list, and the digital keys,” Leo explained, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. “Miller tracked me down, but I managed to escape. I knew he’d watch you, looking for the drive. I didn’t think he’d move this fast to eliminate you.”

“He said he searched our apartment,” I said, my voice trembling as the adrenaline began to fade, leaving behind a cold, hollow terror. “He was looking for the drive.”

“It’s not in the apartment,” Leo said, glancing at me through the rearview mirror with an apologetic look. “Marcus… I hid it in your car. Last week, before I ran. I slipped it inside the lining of your trunk, right beneath the spare tire. That’s why Miller kept leaving those notes. He was trying to scare you into parking in the dark alley behind the building where there are no cameras, so he could tear your car apart without being seen. When you didn’t bite, he decided to just destroy the car and you with it.”

“We need to go to the feds, Leo. The FBI, anyone!” I panicked, looking out the window. “Miller has my phone. He has the dashcam footage from the cloud app on my phone. He’s going to delete it!”

“He can’t delete it if it’s already sent to someone else,” Leo muttered, a grim smile playing on his lips. “When you bought that dashcam today, you linked it to our home Wi-Fi network, right? For the initial setup?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because I still have remote access to our home router. The moment your dashcam uploaded that motion-detection clip to the cloud via the building’s shared network booster, my automated script intercepted a copy of the stream. I have the footage of Miller keying your car, smashing your headlights, and threatening you. I have it right here on my laptop.” He gestured vaguely to the passenger seat, where a glowing laptop sat open.

Suddenly, a siren wailed in the distance. Blue and red lights flashed several blocks behind us. Miller had wasted no time. As an active detective, he had put out a stolen vehicle report or a felony stop on our SUV.

“We’re running out of time,” Leo said, his voice dropping to a deadly serious whisper. “There’s a federal building downtown, but we’ll never make it through the police cruisers Miller is calling in. We need to force his hand. We need to make this public, right now.”

“How?” I asked, my heart hammering.

→
  1. 1
    At My Stepsister’s Luxury Wedding, She Publicly Humiliated Me Before Hundreds—Until 👁️ 7,547 views
  2. 2
    When my parents arrived at my forty-acre coastal property with surveyors, legal documents, and my younger sister already planning where to build her luxury resort, they expected me to cry, threaten lawsuits, and beg them not to take the land I had spent six years saving. Instead, I said, “Okay.” My mother thought I had finally learned my place. My father thought he had beaten me. My sister started celebrating. None of them understood why I was letting them keep going. 👁️ 6,802 views
  3. 3
    My husband wrapped his arms around my seven-month-pregnant belly at Silver Gorge, whispered, “Go in peace, sweetheart,” and pushed me off a cliff. 👁️ 5,874 views
  4. 4
    Five months pregnant, I said no when my mother-in-law demanded the savings my parents had left me—and 👁️ 5,060 views

Recently Viewed

Stories you read recently will appear here.