“We’re ruined,” Ethan muttered to himself, his fingers twitching. “The board will dump the shares. We’ll lose everything.”

“You deserve to lose it,” I said.

Ethan turned to me, his eyes wide and frantic.

“You don’t understand, Claire,” he said, taking a step toward me. “The family trust is tied to the clinic’s valuation. If the fraud charges go public, the banks will call in the loans.”

“Then let them,” I said.

Julian watched Ethan closely.

“The physical records from my father’s office are already in the hands of the police,” Julian told him.

Ethan’s eyes darted to the laptop on the dining table, then back to Julian.

“But the servers,” Ethan said, his voice dropping to a low, desperate murmur. “The main database at Westbridge. The raw genetic backups.”

“They’re secure,” Julian said. “Only my father and the IT director have the access codes.”

Ethan didn’t reply, but his jaw clenched.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his car keys.

“I have to go,” Ethan said.

“The police will want to question you, Ethan,” Samuel warned him from the doorway.