The transmission cut out with a sharp click.

The silence that followed was heavy.

In the distance, down the long corridor outside the office, I heard the faint sound of heavy doors slamming.

Elias took a step back toward the exit.

“I’m leaving,” Elias said.

“You can’t leave,” Arthur said, his voice cracking. “We have a deal.”

“The deal is over,” Elias said.

He reached for the door handle.

Before his fingers could touch the brass lever, the lock clicked.

The sound was sharp, like a pistol shot in the quiet room.

We all froze.

The green light on the electronic lock reader turned solid red.

Someone had overridden the floor security from the main terminal downstairs.

“The stairs,” Arthur muttered, looking around the room for another exit.

There was only the window and the single door.

The office felt very small now.

I looked at the leather binding of the ledger still in my right hand.

The pages were gone, leaving only the empty binding and the useless, non-sequential transactions of minor clients.

The real power of the Blackwell empire’s offshore network was gone from the paper.