“She’s a non-issue,” Marcus said.

“Probably packing her desk as we speak.”

Their footsteps faded as they walked toward the boardroom at the end of the hall.

I looked back at my laptop screen.

The progress bar for the network override was at forty percent.

I needed to map the display output of the boardroom’s central screen.

The board used a smart-glass projector system that ran on the internal network.

Once I bypassed the administrative lock, I could mirror my screen to theirs.

I tapped my fingers on my knees to keep them warm.

The temperature in the room felt like it was dropping.

I thought of Alexander again.

We had met three years ago.

He was the brilliant, distant CEO who barely looked at his assistants.

But I had noticed things.

I noticed when Marcus started changing the accounting software vendors.

I noticed the small discrepancies in the shipping logs.

When I brought them to Alexander, he didn’t dismiss me.

He listened.

And then, they framed him before we could act.

Now, he was sitting in a police station, and I was sitting on a freezing floor.