THE BILLIONAIRE WORE A $6 SHIRT TO TEST HIS BLIND DATE—THEN THE EXHAUSTED WAITRESS RISKED HER JOB FOR THE MAN SHE THOUGHT WAS BROKE

The ambient noise of Luigi’s faded into a dull roar in Oliver’s ears.

He stared at the small, worn leather sketchbook tucked under Natalie’s arm. The gold lettering—*The Wentworth Collection*—was faint, rubbed thin by years of handling, but it was unmistakable.

Fifteen years ago, Richard Wentworth, Oliver’s late father, had reported it stolen from his private safe in their Hamptons estate. The book didn't contain money. It contained the foundational algorithms that Sentinel Arc had been built upon. Algorithms that were currently securing the servers of three major international banks.

"Your father's?" Oliver asked, his voice dangerously quiet.

Natalie frowned, instinctively pulling the book closer to her chest. She misread his intensity as more billionaire arrogance.

"Yes. Not that it’s any of your business," she said defensively.

"What is his name?"

"Thomas Collins."

Oliver searched his memory. The name meant nothing to him.

"Is he still alive?" Oliver asked.

Natalie’s expression hardened. "He died when I was twelve. Look, I don't know what kind of power trip you're on right now, but I’m done. Keep your money. Keep your threats. Just stay away from me."

She pushed open the glass door and walked back out into the rain.

Oliver didn't hesitate. He left the black titanium card on the hostess stand, ignored Peterson completely, and followed her out.

The rain was coming down harder now, washing the neon reflections of the city across the wet pavement. Natalie was walking fast, head down, shoulders hunched against the cold.

"Natalie, wait," Oliver called out, catching up to her at the corner.

She spun around. "I said leave me alone!"

"I need to know about that book," Oliver said, ignoring the rain soaking his expensive suit.

"Why do you care about a sketchbook of old architectural drawings?" she snapped.

Oliver stopped. "Architectural drawings?"

"Yes. My dad was an architect. He drew buildings. Houses. Bridges. He gave me this book before he died. It’s the only thing I have left of his work." She glared at him. "Is that an acceptable answer for you, or do you need to run a background check?"

Oliver’s mind raced. Architectural drawings?

If the book truly contained Richard Wentworth’s security codes, why would Natalie think it was full of building sketches?

"Can I see it?" Oliver asked gently.

"No."

"Natalie, please. It’s important."

"Everything is important to you people," she said bitterly. "You think you can just demand things and people will hand them over."

She turned and began to cross the street against the light.

A yellow taxi, speeding to beat the changing signal, whipped around the corner. The driver slammed on the brakes, the tires screaming on the wet asphalt.

Oliver moved purely on instinct.

He lunged forward, grabbing Natalie by the arm and yanking her backward onto the curb just as the taxi skidded past, splashing a tidal wave of dirty street water over both of them.

Natalie stumbled, dropping the sketchbook. It hit a shallow puddle, the leather cover splashing open.

Oliver immediately dropped to his knees in the rain, grabbing the book before the water could soak the pages.

He picked it up, intending to hand it back to her. But his eyes caught the open page.

Natalie hadn't lied.

There were architectural drawings. Beautiful, intricate, hand-drawn sketches of a massive estate. The lines were precise, the shading masterful.

But Oliver didn't care about the art.

He recognized the house.

It was his childhood home. The Wentworth estate in Southampton.

And hidden within the intricate cross-hatching of the roof tiles, barely visible unless you knew exactly what to look for, was a string of alphanumeric code.

Alpha-7-Charlie-Niner...

The foundational code for Sentinel’s primary firewall.

Natalie’s father hadn't just drawn a house. He had used the drawing as a cipher to hide stolen security algorithms.

Oliver slowly stood up, holding the wet book.

Natalie was trembling, pale from the near-miss with the taxi. She reached out, snatching the book from his hands.

"Don't touch it!" she yelled, wiping the water from the cover with her sleeve.

"Natalie," Oliver said, his voice completely devoid of the smooth, polished edge he usually carried. "Your father didn't draw that house."

She glared at him. "Yes, he did."

"I know he didn't," Oliver said, pointing to the open page. "Because that is my house. I grew up in it. And the numbers hidden in the roof tiles are the security codes for my company."

Natalie froze. The anger in her eyes was suddenly replaced by deep, profound confusion.

"What?"

"The gold lettering on the cover. The Wentworth Collection," Oliver continued, stepping closer. "My last name is Wentworth. That book belonged to my father. It was stolen fifteen years ago."

Natalie looked down at the book in her hands as if it had suddenly turned into a snake.

"No," she whispered. "My dad was a good man. He wouldn't steal."

"I'm not saying he did," Oliver said softly, realizing the gravity of what he was implying about a dead man. "But somehow, my father's most guarded secrets ended up in your father's hands. And he disguised them as art."

Natalie backed away, shaking her head. "This is insane. You're crazy. You're just... you're making this up."

She turned and ran.

This time, Oliver didn't chase her. He watched her disappear into the subway entrance, clutching the book to her chest.

He stood in the rain, his bespoke suit ruined, his mind spinning.

If Thomas Collins had stolen the code, why had he hidden it? Why hadn't he sold it to a rival tech firm? Why give it to his twelve-year-old daughter and tell her it was just a sketchbook?

Oliver’s phone vibrated in his pocket.

He pulled it out. Simon.

"Oliver," Simon’s voice was tense, the usual dry humor completely gone. "Where are you?"

"I’m outside Luigi’s. What’s wrong?"

"I just got an alert from the internal network monitors," Simon said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Someone just attempted a brute-force breach on the legacy servers. The ones holding your father’s original architecture."

Oliver’s blood ran cold. "Did they get in?"

"No. The firewall held. But Oliver..." Simon paused. "They didn't use a random attack. They used the master override sequence. The one that was in the stolen book."

Oliver stared at the empty subway entrance where Natalie had just disappeared.

"Simon," Oliver said, his voice grim. "Natalie Collins has the book."

"What? How is that possible?"

"I don't know. But if someone just tried to use the code..."

Oliver realized the horrific truth before he even finished the sentence.

If someone else knew about the code, and knew it was in the book, then Natalie wasn't just a waitress who had lost her job.

She was a target.

"Send a security team to her apartment," Oliver ordered, sprinting toward the waiting Maybach. "Now, Simon. Before whoever breached the server realizes she has the physical key."

But as Oliver dove into the back of the car and shouted the address to his driver, he realized he was already too late.

Because Natalie had told him last night that she lived with her sick mother.