On his large mahogany desk, my two black external hard drives were sitting next to a stack of printed papers.

They were plugged into his sleek desktop computer.

“Why are my drives here, Dad?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

“Why did you have them brought to your office?”

My father took a slow sip of his drink and finally turned to face me.

He looked tired, the lines around his eyes deeper than usual.

“I had to secure them, Evelyn,” he said.

“They were not safe at the university.”

“Secure them?” I stepped closer to the desk.

“Hunter stole them from my apartment.”

“He and Barbara have been blackmailing me.”

“They set up cameras in my study to watch me.”

“I know,” Arthur said quietly.

He walked over to the desk and placed his glass down on the wood.

I stared at him, my mind struggling to process his words.

“You knew?” I asked.

“You knew they were watching me?”

“It was a necessary precaution,” he said, looking down at the hard drives.

“We couldn’t risk the university claiming the intellectual property rights to this technology.”