But every time he reached for the phone, he heard Web's voice in his head. one accusation, one HR complaint, and he understood with the cold clarity of a man who'd spent four years thinking about worst cases that Marcus had spent the whole weekend building his own version of the story, and that in that version, Ryan was a disgruntled employee who'd hacked confidential files and Victoria was the CEO who'd let him into her apartment on Friday night. if Ryan called her now and Marcus had her phone monitored and a man who knew Ryan's checking balance could monitor a phone. Then Friday night in that apartment stopped being two grieving people and started being evidence. So Ryan didn't call. He did the thing he'd told Emma to do.
He walked into the building and he rode the elevator up and he did the right thing scared. He went straight to Diane. I need 5 minutes with her before the board. he said. Now, before anyone else gets up here, Diane looked at him over her glasses and something in his face must have told her this wasn't ordinary because for once she didn't argue.
She's in the boardroom already prepping. The board convenes at 9:00. She checked the clock. You have 11 minutes.
Go. Ryan pushed through the boardroom doors. Victoria was standing at the head of the long table with the folder his folder open in front of her and she looked up and for a second her whole face opened with something warm. Friday night warm and then she saw his expression and it closed into pure alertness.
What? She said what's happened? Marcus called me this morning. 7 a.m. at home.
Ryan crossed to the table. He knows Victoria. He knows I went through the vendor contracts he's had all weekend. He knows how much money's in my checking account.
He knows about Emma's asthma. He knows the medication runs through the health plan. And he told me Ryan's jaw tightened. He told me if I hand you this folder today, he'll have me fired for cause.
Unauthorized access to confidential files. No severance, no health plan, and my daughter loses her medicine. That was the pitch. Bury the folder.
Tell you I found nothing. Cut the foreheads and Emma keeps breathing. Victoria went white. Then she went very, very still.
The same stillness Ryan had seen Friday when she read the name in the folder. The stillness of a person calculating fast under pressure. He's not wrong about the access, she said slowly. Technically, you weren't authorized to be in those contracts.
That's real. If he frames it first, if he gets to HR before I do, I know he'll say, "You're a disgruntled employee about to be laid off who hacked the finance files to fabricate a smear against the director who recommended the layoff. It's clean. It's plausible.
It puts everything you found in doubt because it makes you the criminal." She pressed two fingers to her temple. "God, he's good. He's had two days and I had a weekend I spent." She stopped. You spent it thinking it was handled, Ryan said quietly.
So did I. Their eyes met, and Friday night was in the room with them. For a second, the empty apartment, the two hands an inch apart on the counter, the plan they'd made in the doorway. After Monday, after it's safe, "And now Monday was here, and it wasn't safe at all." "Okay," Victoria said.
She straightened. The CEO came fully online. And Ryan watched it happen, watched the fear get folded up and put away somewhere she'd deal with it later. Okay.
He thinks he has one move. He thinks the access is his trump card. He doesn't know. I already know about it.
You told me Friday in this building that you found it accidentally looking for budget savings, which is documented because Diane logged you into my office Friday morning at 8:40 as a project manager delivering a cost reduction analysis. “I requested it,” she said with a cold smile. There's an email Thursday. I sent it Thursday night.
Ryan blinked. You didn't send me an email Thursday. I sent myself an email Thursday requesting a division cost analysis from the project management team authorizing full access to vendor and budget documentation. She held his gaze.
Timestamped Thursday 11 p.m. It's been sitting in my sent folder all weekend. I sent it after you left my office Friday. I backdated nothing.
Ryan, don't look at me like that. I sent it Thursday night before I ever knew what you'd find because I'm careful. because I've been the villain in enough stories to know you document everything. She almost laughed. I authorized your access before you used it.
Marcus' whole trump card is that you were unauthorized. You weren't. I can prove it. Ryan stared at her.
You covered me before you even knew you'd need to. I cover everyone who works for me. It's the only decent thing about me. She said it lightly, but it cost her something.
Now listen, he'll be here in She 7 minutes. He'll walk in that door thinking he spent the weekend building a trap. And he'll be watching your face, waiting to see if you buried the folder like a scared man protecting his kid. Her eyes sharpened.
So here's what we do. We let him think you did. What? When the board convenes, I'm going to open by asking the project management division for its cost reduction findings.
That's you. and you're going to stand up in front of 11 people and Marcus is going to be sitting right there watching and you're going to say she leaned forward exactly what he told you to say. You're going to say you looked and you found nothing and the four positions will have to be eliminated after all. Victoria, let him relax, she said. Let him think he won.
Let him lean back in that chair with his coffee and his tan and think he scared the sad single father into folding. And then I take the folder out. Her smile was terrible. Now the focused thing under the nicknames finally aimed.