“They can’t suspend me,” Victor said. “I am the majority voting shareholder.”

“Not anymore,” Nathan said. “Claire’s original investment agreement had a clawback clause for corporate malfeasance.”

Nathan looked at me, offering a small, sad nod of reassurance.

“Her lawyers triggered it two hours ago,” Nathan said. “Your voting power is frozen pending the investigation.”

Victor turned to me, his eyes wide with a mixture of anger and panic.

“Claire, please,” he said, taking a step toward my chair. “We can talk about this. We can fix this.”

“There is nothing to talk about, Victor,” I said.

My voice was calm, much calmer than the tight knot of anger in my chest.

I looked at the blue folder on the table, seeing the names of the companies we had spent fifteen years building.

“You thought I wouldn’t look,” I said. “You thought I was too distracted by everything else.”

“I did it for us,” he lied.

The lie was old, worn out, and useless in the quiet of the hospital room.

“You did it for yourself,” I said. “And for Brooke.”