Clarissa’s pulse quickened.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because I’m many things,” Julian said, voice breaking, “but I didn’t plan that part.”
Clarissa searched his face.
For once, she believed him.
Not because he deserved belief.
Because fear had stripped him too bare to perform.
She stood and opened the door.
“Nathaniel,” she called.
Nathaniel Vale rose from a chair in the hallway. He had come as a strategic advisor, though Arthur pretended not to notice how often his daughter’s eyes found him in difficult rooms.
Clarissa handed him her phone.
“I need you to trace something.”
Within forty-eight hours, the truth emerged.
The leak had come from Victor Hargrove, Arthur Vance’s most trusted deputy, a man who had served Vance Global for twenty years.
Arthur’s fury was terrible.
Victor was brought into the executive boardroom just before dawn, the city still dark beyond the windows.
