Chapter 37

The folder hit Adam’s desk with a crack that echoed through the room, loud enough to make him flinch.

“Care to explain,” I said, voice sharp and clipped, “why your credentials were used to rewrite voting logs?”

He blinked at me, slow and stupid. Or pretending to be. His fingers tensed where they rested on the keyboard, as if calculating whether he could fake his way out of this.

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, tone falsely light.

I didn’t bother sitting. My hand gripped the back of the chair across from him as I leaned in. “Don’t play dumb. Emma pulled your keystrokes. We have everything.”

He froze. There it was—the flicker of panic, quick and undeniable, behind the eyes.

“I left my laptop unattended,” he offered quickly. “Anyone could have—”

“Enough.” I stepped around the desk, folder flipping open in my hands. I laid the records out one by one—metadata, access logs, keystroke timestamps. Each page made the room quieter. The weight of proof made the air feel heavier, like gravity had tripled.

He slumped, shoulders collapsing in on themselves. “It was Jenny,” he muttered. “She told me it was harmless. That we just needed a little insurance. I didn’t think it would matter.”

“You altered active legislation, Adam.”

He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “She said I needed to feel important. That if I helped her, maybe I’d have a seat at the table. That people would finally see what I was capable of.”

“You wanted recognition,” I said. “So you sold your integrity for a footnote.”

He hesitated, then nodded, almost imperceptibly.

I pulled out my phone, thumbed open the voice recorder, and hit record. “Say it again.”

He looked at the phone, then back at me. “I… I altered the drafts. I sent them to Jenny. I just wanted to matter.”

I stopped the recording and forwarded it directly to Beta’s secured line.

“You’re lucky I’m giving you a chance to resign,” I said. “Write your letter. Make it clean. Save what little dignity you have left.”

I turned to leave, but paused at the door, looking over my shoulder.

“Next time you feel small,” I said, voice even and cold, “try earning something instead of stealing it. You always made me feel small, Adam—like I was lucky to be standing beside you, like I owed you space I carved for myself. But now everyone sees it. You weren’t my partner. You were the dead weight I carried while pretending it was teamwork.”

He didn’t speak. He just stared at the papers on his desk, eyes vacant.

Word spread like wildfire. It always did.

By the time I stepped into the west corridor, eyes were already following me. I caught whispers behind coffee cups. A logistics officer gave me a double take before disappearing into an elevator. Two guards snapped to attention as I passed.

I didn’t slow down. I didn’t smile. I just kept walking. There was a ripple of presence around me now—gravity had shifted. Not everyone knew what had happened, but they could feel it. And they knew it had come from me.

Jenny found me outside the archives just before midday. Her heels echoed like gunshots, sharp and fast.

“You think you’ve won something?” she hissed, closing the space between us. “You just made enemies in every direction.”

I met her eyes with a level gaze. “Then I’ll start keeping a list.”

She sneered. “You’re so sure of yourself. So righteous. But we both know what you are.”

“I’m someone who knows what side of history I want to stand on.”

She laughed—cold and bitter. “You’re just playing hero in a story that isn’t yours. You don’t belong in this world.”

“Funny,” I said, folding my arms, “that’s what I thought about you.”

We stood there in silence. She looked like she wanted to say more, but then she didn’t. She just turned and walked away, spine stiff, steps forced and fast.

I watched her retreat. And then I walked back inside.

Emma and I took over the data room that afternoon. We pulled our chairs close, logged into the internal systems, and ran security audits until our eyes stung and our spines ached. We didn’t talk much—just low murmurs, shared glances, the occasional muttered curse when a line of code didn’t match what we expected.

The script was buried deep—an elegant trap tucked between system pings and automatic updates.

But we found it.

A backdoor script, firing off silent updates every few hours to an off-site IP.

“Where does it go?” I asked, rubbing the bridge of my nose.

Emma typed fast, eyes flicking across the screen. “One of David’s shell companies,” she said. “He barely masked it. Probably thought no one would get this far.”

I stared at the glowing screen. “Then let’s keep going.”

We worked in silence, the rhythm of typing broken only by murmured confirmations, file names, and timestamps. We pulled each thread, matched each timestamp, watched the puzzle pieces lock together with quiet horror and growing purpose. By the time we compiled the logs, the code trails, and the routing maps, we’d built a bomb wrapped in truth.

Nathan arrived just before sunset, summoned without ceremony. He took the folder we handed him and read it standing up, flipping through pages with increasing intensity.

When he finally spoke, it was with the quiet fire of someone who had been waiting for this.

“I’ll take it from here,” he said. But then he looked up, meeting my eyes. “You’ve done more in two weeks than most do in two years.”

I didn’t say thank you. I didn’t need to. I just nodded.

We weren’t finished yet.

The rooftop meeting space felt like standing at the edge of the world. Clean lines, glass walls, and an unobstructed view of the trees stretching into dusk. The wind was brisk, almost biting, but it carried a strange stillness with it—like the air was waiting, holding its breath.

The final strategy session of the summit was set for golden hour. The skyline gleamed. Light danced along the table.

Richard was already there, flipping through briefing materials. He looked calm. Controlled. But the moment I walked up, he set a folder down and slid a sheet of paper toward me.

My name was there. Beside his.

“Contributor credit,” he said. “You earned this.”

I stared at it. Not because I didn’t believe it. But because seeing it printed—final, official—made my chest tighten.

“They’re going to talk,” I said.

“They already do,” he replied. “Let them talk about the truth for once.”

The session lasted nearly two hours. I spoke twice. Both times, no one interrupted. That was new.

They listened. Really listened. Even the ones who had once side-eyed me in hallways or looked past me in strategy sessions. They looked at me differently now—warily, maybe, but with respect.

When it ended, everyone filtered out slowly, voices low and tired. Richard and I stayed behind.

The city lights were beginning to blink on, one by one. The air had cooled, crisp and sharp. I leaned against the railing, arms folded, fingers chilled.

“If we win,” I said, voice low, “what happens to me?”

He came to stand beside me. Not touching. But close enough that I could feel the heat of him, the way his presence made the cold recede just slightly.

“Whatever you choose,” he said softly. “But I hope you stay.”

I looked at him then. The lines of his face caught in shadow and light. The quiet reverence in his voice made something flutter in my chest.

We didn’t kiss, but it would have been the perfect moment to.

The wind picked up. A strand of hair blew across my face, but I didn’t move to fix it. He didn’t either. Maybe he was afraid to break the moment. Maybe I was.