“The merger is over,” I said into the phone. “Mr. Miller, are your agents in the building?”

“We are entering the lobby now,” Miller said over the line. “Keep the line open.”

On the boardroom feed, the board members were standing up from their leather chairs.

Marcus’s face had turned a pale, sickly gray.

He dropped the pen.

It rolled across the polished wood, staining the white merger contract with a trail of black ink.

Victoria stood up slowly, her eyes fixed on the screen.

Her jaw was tight, her fingers curling into tight fists at her sides.

“This is a hoax,” Marcus’s voice came through the audio feed on my phone, loud and cracked with panic. “Someone has hacked our system. Turn it off!”

He turned to the wall console, slapping his palm against the buttons.

Nothing changed.

The screen scrolled to the next document: a copy of Victoria Crane’s personal offshore account statements, showing a ten-million-dollar wire transfer to Marcus Reed’s shell company.

The date of the transfer was the exact day Alexander was ousted from the board.