Chapter 7: The Aftershock

Chapter 7: The Aftershock

A year can change everything.

The stale, recycled air and humming fluorescent lights of Apex Electronics were a distant, almost dreamlike memory. Today, the air in Leo’s office smelled of fresh coffee and the low, powerful hum was that of high-performance fans cooling his custom-built editing rig—the very same machine whose components he’d nervously placed on the counter that fateful morning. Sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling window of his downtown loft studio, glinting off the sleek, black body of the Blackfire Cinema 6K Pro camera mounted on a tripod in the corner.

Apex Media was no longer just a name born of defiance; it was a thriving reality. Leo had spent the last twelve months pouring every ounce of his energy and technical genius into it. He’d shot commercials for local businesses, produced slick corporate training videos, and was now in pre-production for a documentary that was attracting serious interest. He wasn’t just a kid who knew cameras anymore. He was a business owner. A creator.

His phone buzzed, pulling him from a complex color-grading session. It was his virtual assistant, a service he’d hired three months ago.

“Leo, a Mr. Jacobson on the line for you,” she said, her voice professionally crisp. “He says he’s calling from the law firm of Sterling, Whitehall, and Finch. He insists it’s urgent.”

The name hit Leo like a physical jolt. Sterling. Richard Sterling. The hatchet man. For a fraction of a second, the old fear, the ghost of the powerless retail worker, clenched its icy fist around his heart. He looked at the Zeiss lens on his desk, its weight a solid, reassuring presence. That feeling was from another lifetime.

“Put him through, Jenna,” Leo said, his voice calm. He leaned back in his ergonomic chair, swiveling to face the window overlooking the city. He was no longer under their roof. He was above it.

“Mr. Vance?” The voice on the phone was smooth, oily, and dripping with manufactured authority. It was the same species of voice as Sterling's. “My name is Phillip Jacobson. I represent Apex Electronics’ corporate division. I’m calling regarding a highly irregular series of transactions that took place at Store #734 approximately one year ago.”

Leo remained silent, letting the lawyer fill the void.

“Our internal audit, conducted prior to the asset liquidation of that failed retail location, has uncovered what can only be described as a coordinated conspiracy to defraud the company,” Jacobson continued, the condescension palpable. “We have receipts showing nearly half a million dollars in high-end electronics sold for a fraction of their value, all processed by the same manager and sold to a list of twelve employees. Your name, Mr. Vance, appears on a receipt for over seventy-three thousand dollars’ worth of professional media equipment, for which you paid a little over seven thousand.”

The lawyer paused for dramatic effect. “Grand larceny on that scale carries significant penalties, Mr. Vance. We’re talking felony charges. Prison time.”

There it was. The threat. The iron fist in the velvet glove. The old Leo would have been stammering, terrified. But the old Leo didn’t exist anymore.

“Are you a prosecutor, Mr. Jacobson?” Leo asked, his tone genuinely curious.

The question seemed to throw the lawyer off his script. “Excuse me?”

“You mentioned felony charges and prison time. I was just wondering if the law firm of Sterling, Whitehall, and Finch had taken over the duties of the District Attorney’s office, or if you were just trying to scare me.”

A tense silence crackled over the line. “I am merely outlining the potential legal exposure you and your… co-conspirators face,” Jacobson said, his voice now laced with irritation. “Apex is prepared to be reasonable, however. The company is willing to forgo criminal proceedings in exchange for the immediate return of all merchandise, plus compensatory damages for its use over the past year.”

Leo almost laughed. They didn’t want justice; they just wanted their stuff back. He thought of Sarah, whose audio engineering business was finally allowing her to put her daughter in a better school. He thought of Dave, who was happier than Leo had ever seen him, running his own installation company and working on his own terms. They wanted to drag them all back into the pit.

“Let me see if I understand,” Leo said, spinning his chair back to face his editing monitors, where a stunning 6K shot from the Blackfire was paused on screen. “You’re calling me about a series of transactions that were authorized by the acting store manager, using his contractually stipulated discretionary power as outlined in the Apex Management Operations Handbook, Revision 7.2, Section 7, Subsection D, Clause 12. You have the receipts, which I assume were signed, and the credit card transactions, which I assume were approved. Everything was done by the book. Your book, as I recall.”

He could almost hear Jacobson’s jaw tightening. The lawyer had expected a frightened kid, not someone who had memorized the exact clause that had set them free.

“That clause was not intended to facilitate the wholesale looting of a store!” Jacobson sputtered, his professional calm finally cracking.

“It wasn’t looting,” Leo corrected him calmly. “It was severance pay. Something your client, Apex Electronics, tried to steal from us by fabricating a record of ‘sustained underperformance’ for the most profitable store in the region. That, Mr. Jacobson, is actual fraud. I wonder what a judge would think of that?”

“You can’t prove any of that!”

This was the moment. The final move. Arthur had called him a month after they’d left, having spent his first few weeks of freedom talking to old contacts, digging into the corporate rot. He’d given Leo the final, devastating piece of the puzzle, a trump card to be held and never played, unless absolutely necessary. Leo decided this was necessary.

“I probably can’t,” Leo agreed smoothly. “But I don’t think I’d have to. Tell me, Mr. Jacobson, before you file your little lawsuit over my legally purchased camera equipment, you might want to ask your partners about discovery.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Discovery,” Leo repeated, a sharp, cold edge entering his voice. “The part of a trial where we’d get to subpoena company records. I’d be very interested, for example, in the personal brokerage accounts of your CEO, Martin Cross. Specifically, I’d be curious to see the documentation for the very large, anonymous purchase of LuxeMart stock options he made through a shell corporation three days before the sale of Apex’s retail portfolio to them was announced. A deal that netted him a personal profit of, what was it, eight million dollars? Some might call that portfolio optimization. The SEC would call it insider trading.”

Dead silence.

Leo could hear the lawyer’s faint, panicked breathing. He had him. He had the entire, rotten company. They had tried to ruin twelve lives to protect a dirty secret, and now that secret was in the hands of the very people they had tried to crush.

“Mr. Vance…” Jacobson began, his voice now a strained, strangled whisper. “I… I may have been misinformed about some of the details of this situation.”

“I think you have,” Leo said, all the warmth gone from his tone. “So here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to hang up this phone. You are going to delete my number. You will delete the numbers for Sarah, Dave, Kevin, and the other eight members of our team. You will tell Mr. Sterling and Mr. Cross that their assets were liquidated, per company policy, and that the matter is closed. If I or anyone from my team ever hears from you or anyone at Apex again, my first call will not be to my lawyer. It will be to a friend of mine at the Wall Street Journal. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” Jacobson squeaked. “Crystal clear.”

“Good,” Leo said. He didn’t wait for a reply. He ended the call.

He sat there for a long moment, the silence of his studio wrapping around him like a blanket. It was over. Truly over. The aftershock had come, and they had not only survived it, they had silenced the earthquake at its source.

He looked at the equipment that surrounded him—his arsenal, his severance, his future. They had tried to take everything from him, and in doing so, had given him the tools to build a world of his own. The final word, at last, belonged to them.

He picked up his phone and dialed a familiar number. It rang twice before the warm, calm voice of his old manager answered.

“Arthur’s Installations, Arthur speaking.”

“Hey, Arthur,” Leo said, a wide, relieved grin spreading across his face. “It’s Leo. You will not believe the phone call I just had.”