“Yes,” I had said.

“He is using you as a shield.”

“When the board demands answers, he will claim you acted alone and that he was too trusting.”

Lila had let go of her mug. Her hands were shaking.

“I have the access codes to his draft folder,” she said.

“He thinks I don’t know his password, but he wrote it down in the office calendar we shared.”

“He keeps the internal ledger drafts there because he doesn’t want them on the main network yet.”

“Get them for me,” I had said.

“And I will ensure your name is cleared when this goes to the board.”

“If you do not, you will face the charges alone.”

Now, in the quiet of my study, I watched the files open one by one.

Lila had kept her word.

She had copied not just the emails, but the draft spreadsheets of the marketing expenditures.

The numbers did not lie.

Ethan had diverted over four hundred thousand dollars of client retainer fees into an account controlled by his shell company.

The policy breaches were clear, but the financial fraud was criminal.