“You look terrible, Claire,” Ethan said, his voice smooth and conversational. “They really shouldn’t have let you out of the hospital so soon.”

I didn’t move.

“I have the ledger, Ethan,” I said, my voice steady despite the adrenaline surging through me. “Let Liam go.”

Ethan chuckled, taking a step closer to the desk, his hands clasped loosely in front of him.

“You always were too smart for your own good,” he said, shaking his head. “But you never understood how the world actually works.”

He looked around the empty, concrete room, then back at me, his smile widening.

At that moment, the screen of the burner phone in my pocket vibrated against my thigh.

The vibration against my thigh was a low, steady pulse.

It was the signal that the stream was live and the remote server was recording.

I kept my hands resting flat on the cold steel of the desk so Ethan wouldn’t see them shake.

“You think you can just walk away with this, Ethan?” I asked.

Ethan laughed, a dry sound that bounced off the unfinished concrete walls.