Chapter 5 5

The meeting with Julian Vance was set for later, but first, Darian had one loose end to tie up. A loose end worth a billion dollars.

The next morning, she received a call from Charles Enterprises legal. They needed her back. Just for one hour. There was a merger file-the OmniTech acquisition-that was encrypted with her biometrics. They couldn't close the deal without her.

Darian walked into the boardroom at 9:00 AM sharp.

The long mahogany table was crowded with lawyers, bankers, and the OmniTech CEO. Grant sat at the head, looking tired. Aimee was absent.

"Thank you for coming," Grant said stiffly. He didn't look at her.

"I charge a consulting fee," Darian said, taking her seat at the laptop connected to the projector. "Five thousand dollars an hour."

Grant's jaw tightened. "Fine. Just unlock the file."

Darian placed her finger on the scanner. The screen populated with spreadsheets. She began to walk the investors through the valuation. She was brilliant. Concise. Commanding. For twenty minutes, the room was hers.

Then, Grant's personal phone rang.

It was the ringtone he had assigned to Aimee. A stupid pop song.

Grant looked at the screen. He glanced at a small, secondary tablet beside his laptop, and Darian saw his eyes narrow for a fraction of a second. A flicker of red light from a security app she recognized. He knew. He held up a hand, interrupting the OmniTech CEO mid-sentence.

"I have to take this," Grant said.

The room went silent. You didn't interrupt a billion-dollar closing for a phone call.

"Grant?" Aimee's voice was audible from the phone, whiny and tearful. "Baby, my stomach hurts. I think it's cramps. It's really bad." It was the perfect, flimsy excuse.

Darian froze. She remembered two years ago. She had been miscarrying in the bathroom of this very building. She had called Grant, bleeding and terrified. He had texted back: In a meeting. Handle it.

She had handled it alone. And she had been back at her desk the next morning.

Grant stood up. "I'm coming, Aimee. I'll take you to the doctor."

"Grant," the OmniTech CEO said, offended. "We are in the middle of the closing."

"My fiancée is ill," Grant said, grabbing his jacket. He was playing the part, but his eyes locked with Darian's over the heads of the investors. It was a silent challenge. I know what you're doing. Stop me. He walked out, not toward the hospital, but toward the security hub on the 48th floor.

The silence in the room was deafening. The investors looked at each other, then at Darian. They were disgusted.

Darian stared at the empty chair. Something inside her finally snapped. The last thread of loyalty, the last ghost of love, disintegrated.

She looked at the laptop. Grant had left his admin account logged in. A trap.

"Gentlemen," Darian said, her voice smooth. "Let's take a five-minute recess. I need to retrieve the final addendum."

The men grumbled but filed out for coffee.

Alone in the boardroom, Darian's fingers flew across the keyboard. She didn't open the addendum. She opened the hidden drive labeled Archive 99.

It contained the financial records of the hostile takeover of the Klein Group, ten years ago. The illegal short-selling. The bribes paid to her uncle to betray her father.

It was all there. The smoking gun.

She pulled a small, innocuous-looking USB drive from her blazer. It wasn't just a storage device; it was a ghost key she had designed herself years ago. She plugged it in and executed a script. To any network security, it would appear as a routine diagnostic, masking the rapid, silent transfer of encrypted data. The progress bar crawled across a hidden partition on her screen.

20%... 50%... 90%...

The door handle turned.

Darian yanked the USB drive out just as the investors walked back in. She slipped the drive into the hidden pocket of her blazer.

"Shall we continue?" Darian asked, smiling.

She finished the meeting. She closed the deal for him. She made him ten million dollars in fees that morning.

And she stole the weapon that would cost him everything.

As she walked out of the building, she felt lighter than air. She slipped the USB drive into her shoe.

She hailed a cab. "Vance Law Firm," she told the driver.

Meanwhile, in the security room, Grant stared at the logs. The transfer was invisible, scrubbed clean by Darian's script. It looked like nothing had happened. But he knew. He felt it. He had lost something vital. He felt a sudden, sharp pang in his chest. A sense of loss so profound it made him dizzy.

"Sir?" his head of security asked.

"Nothing," Grant whispered. "False alarm."