She did not look at the camera; she looked at Daniel.

Daniel took a step toward me, his hand outstretched, his fingers twitching.

“Emily,” he said, and for the first time, his voice lacked its usual iron weight. “Turn it off.”

“It is already done, Daniel,” I said.

My thumb pressed the small black button on the transmitter in my pocket.

On the work table, my laptop screen flared to life, a green progress bar reaching one hundred percent.

The audio file was not just saving to a local drive.

It was routing through a secure, off-site server I had paid for three months ago with cash.

From that server, it went directly to the digital mailboxes of twenty-four financial journalists and the entire board of directors.

“She’s bluffing,” Clara said, her high heels clicking as she took two steps toward my desk.

“Search the desk,” Clara ordered the man with the bolt cutters. “Get the hard drives.”

The man took a step forward, his heavy boots crunching on a stray piece of plaster.

“I wouldn’t do that,” I said.