Alexander sat at the kitchen island, his laptop open in front of him. The penthouse was quiet, save for the occasional hum of the fridge and the low murmur of a news anchor on the muted television in the corner. He barely noticed. His eyes were glued to the files on the flash drive Siena had brought home the night before.
It was all there. Transfers between shell companies, confidential emails masked in vague language, meeting transcripts that referred to "cleansings," "adjustments," and other innocuous code words. All of it was meticulously timestamped. All of it damning.
He could hardly believe it. Some of the names—he knew them. Men and women who smiled on magazine covers and shook hands at global summits. Untouchables.
Now… maybe not.
Siena walked in, wrapped in one of his shirts, her hair damp from a shower. She looked pale and exhausted, but more composed than she had the night before. She carried two mugs of coffee and slid one across the counter to him.
"Find anything new?"
He nodded slowly. "Too much. This is bigger than we thought."
"How big?"
Alexander clicked a folder labeled "Tier One – Executive Circle."
A spreadsheet opened.
He turned the screen toward her.
She leaned in and read the names.
Some made her blink twice. One made her stop breathing altogether.
She pointed. "No. That can't be right."
Alexander didn't say anything. He just nodded once.
"Ethan Carlisle?" she whispered. "He was at my father's funeral."
"He funded your father's hospital renovation three months before his death," Alexander said. "Which was used to launder close to ten million in foreign investments from the same offshore bank connected to Dorian."
Siena sat down slowly. "That… that means he was part of it from the beginning. Maybe longer."
Alexander clicked on a recording file labeled: C.10_Conference_Call_Record.mp3
He hit play.
A tinny voice came through the speakers. "If Withers can't contain the audit results, we'll need to shift the board again. Blackwood's going soft. Trent is already pushing back. We might need a new face to calm the markets."
Another voice: "Carlisle can handle it. He has the press in his pocket."
Alexander stopped the recording.
"That voice—" Siena said. "I recognize the second one."
Alexander looked up. "Who?"
She hesitated. "I'm not sure. I think I heard it once before… at that charity gala in the spring. The one hosted by Weston Lang."
"You think Lang's part of this?"
"I think he's more than just part of it," she said slowly. "I think he's been helping fund the internal takedown of Blackwood from the start."
Alexander rubbed his temples. "Lang owns a media group. That's how they've been controlling the narrative."
"And Withers said they used people in different positions—media, finance, tech. Lang has the perfect cover."
They both fell silent for a minute.
Then Siena looked up. "What if we leaked some of this?"
Alexander blinked. "Now?"
"Not everything. Just enough. Enough to make them sweat. Enough to make them think someone on the inside turned."
"It could buy us time," Alexander agreed. "Or make us targets faster."
"We're already targets, Alex. Withers is proof of that."
He closed the laptop. "Okay. Let's talk strategy."
---
They spent the next four hours creating a false leak.
Alexander carefully edited the files, scrubbing metadata and adding a watermark to make it look like an internal leak from one of the shell companies. Siena helped him draft a whistleblower-style email, full of ambiguity but heavy with implication. They created a burner account and scheduled the email to be sent to three different newsrooms the next morning.
By the time they finished, Siena's head throbbed.
Alexander turned off the computer and looked at her.
"You've been running nonstop since yesterday. Go rest."
"I can't sleep," she said honestly.
He reached across the counter and took her hand. "Then stay here. Just... sit with me."
She didn't argue. She moved around the island, and he pulled her gently into his lap. Her head rested on his shoulder, and for a few precious minutes, they just breathed.
No talking. No planning. No fear.
Just silence.
And closeness.
---
The next morning, the effect was immediate.
The story hit three independent blogs by 8 a.m., all of which had a reputation for breaking high-level corporate leaks. By noon, the financial sector was buzzing. Words like "shadow board," "strategic coercion," and "Blackwood's secret investors" were trending.
Lang gave a statement denying everything, but it was rushed.
By evening, two of the shell companies mentioned in the leak had shut down their websites.
And at 7:30 p.m., Siena got a message.
No name.
No sender.
Just one sentence:
"You don't know what you're starting."
She showed it to Alexander. He read it once, then twice.
Then he looked at her. "They're rattled."
"I'm not afraid," she said. "I'm angry."
---
That night, she called Reeve.
"Any word on Dael?" she asked.
Reeve sighed. "Nothing definitive. However, I tracked one of the offshore firms listed in Withers' files to a port company near the border. The last ship they used docked three months ago... and I found a record of a passenger detained briefly at customs. No passport. No name. Just a number."
Siena's chest tightened. "Could it be Dael?"
"Could be. But I'll need more time to trace it."
"I'll help," she said. "Send me everything."
---
The days that followed moved like storm clouds.
Alexander had to show up at Blackwood to put out fires from the partial leak, and he used the chaos to quietly replace two more board members—both of whom had ties to the firms in Withers' files.
Meanwhile, Siena worked from home with Reeve, sorting through layers of coded transactions, hidden emails, and voice messages. Every hour brought a new twist, a new betrayal.
But also—more clarity.
Each file was a thread. A connection. A piece of the machine.
Siena started seeing the patterns. Started understanding how deep the web went.
This wasn't just about her father.
It was about an empire built on secrecy, stitched together by greed and silence.
And she would unravel it.
Piece by piece.
---
On the fifth night, Siena stood on the balcony of the penthouse, staring out over the city.
Alexander joined her, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind. He pressed his chin gently to her shoulder.
"You're quiet."
"Just thinking."
"About?"
She turned slightly in his arms, looking up at him. "I don't know how this ends, Alex. I want to believe we can take them down, that we'll come out the other side stronger. But part of me is terrified that even if we win... we lose something."
He didn't speak right away.
Then he said, "We've already lost too much. The only way through is forward."
Siena nodded. "Promise me, if this ever gets too dangerous—"
"No," he said quickly. "Don't ask me to walk away. Not now."
She smiled faintly. "I wasn't going to ask you to leave. I was going to ask you to make sure we leave a record. Something Eli can find one day if we don't make it."
Alexander cupped her face gently. "We're going to make it."
She leaned into him, eyes closed. "I hope so."