“You’ve been planning this for months,” he said.

“I had to be sure,” I said.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked. “We could have stopped him together.”

“Because you would have used it to blackmail him, not to stop him,” I said. “And I wanted both of you out of my life.”

The phone on the table lit up again, but this time it wasn’t a call.

A text message from Daniel popped up on the lock screen.

The preview text was visible to both of us.

*The board meeting has been moved to tomorrow at eight. We have the votes.*

Elias reached out and picked up the phone.

His fingers trembled slightly as he read the message.

“He is locking me out,” Elias said.

“He thinks he is,” I said.

I picked up my briefcase and stood up.

“But he doesn’t know I have the patents,” I added.

“If you expose him, you expose the whole company,” Elias said, looking up at me. “Everything I worked for will be gone.”

“Then you should have paid more attention to who you were dealing with,” I said.