I ran after him.
Two floors felt like twenty.
We reached the private dining room just as Carter security and Whitmore security hit the door together.
Inside, Caleb had Victoria by the arm.
Adrian stood near the table.
Marcus was backing away.
Richard crossed the room before anybody could stop him.
“Get your hands off my daughter.”
Caleb released her.
Victoria stumbled into her father.
He caught her.
I entered behind them.
Adrian stared at me.
For the first time, his polished confidence slipped.
Marcus looked toward the door.
My security team blocked it.
He lifted both hands.
“I had no idea this meeting involved anything illegal.”
“Then you won’t mind staying to explain that to federal investigators.”
Adrian smiled.
“You’re bluffing.”
I held up my phone.
“Am I?”
As if on cue, sirens sounded below.
Not dramatic.
Not cinematic.
Real.
Adrian’s face emptied.
“You called them?”
“My counsel did.”
“Before Victoria came upstairs.”
Adrian laughed once.
“You’re making a mistake.”
“I’ve made plenty.”
I stepped closer.
“Trusting you isn’t one of them.”
Federal agents entered minutes later.
They separated everyone.
Phones were collected.
Laptops secured.
Marcus requested an attorney immediately.
Adrian said almost nothing.
Victoria did.
She gave them everything.
Messages.
Emails.
Names.
Access points.
The missing tablet was recovered from Caleb’s car two hours later.
He had been trying to erase it.
He failed.
By midnight, we had enough to understand part of the scheme.
Adrian had used Victoria to pressure Whitmore from inside.
Ethan Marsh had helped him access systems.
Caleb stole hardware.
North Coast had received stolen commercial data through intermediaries.
Whether senior leadership knew it was stolen remained unclear.
Marcus insisted he believed everything had been legally obtained during due diligence.
The investigators were skeptical.
So was I.
At 1:15 in the morning, Richard and I sat in an empty conference room.
Victoria was giving her statement.
He looked exhausted.
“You could have destroyed us today.”
“I still might.”
Fair.
Then he looked at me.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because your daughter being manipulated doesn’t erase what she did.”
He stared at the table.
“But?”
“But punishing an entire company without facts would make me exactly what the headlines say I am.”
He almost smiled.
Then my phone rang.
My attorney.
His first sentence made me stand.
“We found the original source.”
“Of the Bellamy leak?”
“Then who?”
“Someone inside Carter Retail.”
He said it.
And suddenly the room felt colder than the street outside.
Because the name belonged to the one person at my company who knew every weakness I had.
My chief financial officer.
Daniel Mercer.
My closest friend for twenty-three years.
Chapter 5
I didn’t believe it.
That was my first reaction.
Not denial.
Not anger.
Just refusal.
“Run it again.”
My attorney sighed.
“We did.”
“Then do it a third time.”
“Daniel’s credentials accessed the secured transaction room on fourteen separate occasions outside normal hours.”
“That doesn’t prove he leaked anything.”
I grabbed onto that.
“But his private cloud account received copies of the files.”
My throat tightened.
“That could be planted.”
“It could.”
“Was it?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Richard said nothing.
This was my company now.
My betrayal.
I walked to the window.
Daniel Mercer had been beside me before Carter Retail existed.
We met when we were both twenty-six.
I had ambition.
He had numbers.
I understood customers.
He understood capital.
When Naomi died, Daniel sat outside my apartment every night for a week because he knew I wouldn’t answer the door but didn’t want me alone.
He was family.
Closer than family.
“Where is he?” I asked.
My attorney answered.
“Home, according to security.”
“Does he know?”
Richard watched me.
“What will you do?”
“Ask him.”
“At one in the morning?”
“You’re going there yourself?”
He stood.
“I’m coming.”
“You helped my daughter tonight.”
“That doesn’t make you my bodyguard.”
He put on his coat.
“But it makes me unwilling to let you confront a possible corporate criminal alone.”
I almost argued.