“They were building dummy projects all over the state, billing the government for work that was never done.”

“Your father found the second set of books. The real ones.”

I felt a chill run down my spine that had nothing to do with the winter storm outside.

“Why didn’t he go to the police?” I asked.

“He tried,” she said. “But Julian found out. He threatened to hurt you, Emily.”

“So your father hid the files.”

“Where?” I asked, my breath catching in my throat.

“He encrypted them,” she said. “He put them on a digital drive and hid it on the network.”

“But he didn’t have time to download them before they took him.”

“Who took him?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

“Bellamy’s men. And Trevor was one of them.”

I stared at her, the pieces of the puzzle crashing together in my mind.

Trevor wasn’t just a cruel manager at the restaurant.

He was the inside man who had helped destroy my family.

“Trevor has access to the old servers,” my mother said. “The ones kept in the back office of the Crystal Oak.”