I pushed open the door to the study and slammed my leather briefcase onto the mahogany desk.

My fingers shook slightly as I opened my laptop and connected the secure drive.

The screen glowed, casting a pale blue light across the dark, wood-paneled room.

On-screen, the deletion progress bar for Caldwell Systems’ ledger was already at twelve percent.

“Not today,” I muttered, typing a series of override commands Claire had taught me years ago.

The progress bar froze, then turned solid red as the system locked out the external user.

I breathed out, my breath forming a faint, brief mist in the chilly room.

I began opening the encrypted financial audits I had pulled earlier that afternoon.

The folder for Alpenglow Holdings was buried three directories deep under dummy marketing expenses.

I clicked through the wire transfers, each one representing a massive drain on the company.

Forty-two million dollars had been moved over the last eighteen months alone.

Every single authorization carried a digital signature.

I zoomed in on the certificate details for the most recent transaction of five million dollars.