Mitchell had just stepped out with the quarterly reports when my screen flickered. Once. Twice. Then everything went black.
I froze.
That wasn't a crash. That was a cut.
"Mitchell?" I called, but the outer office was silent. I tapped the keyboard, waited. Nothing. Then, suddenly, the monitor came back to life except my open folder wasn't the one I'd left.
The file labeled "PROJECT BLACKWOOD" sat on the screen like it had been waiting for me.
Every instinct screamed not to open it.
So, of course, I did.
Lines of code, correspondence logs, fragments of transaction data half of it scrambled, half of it terrifyingly legible. Offshore accounts. Board member emails. Payouts under dummy corporations that linked right back to… my own division.
No.
I scrolled faster, breath hitching as the numbers began to make sense. The "anonymous funding" that had propped up my research branch six months ago? Blackwood money. Quiet, untraceable, perfectly folded into my department's accounts.
How was this possible?
I didn't notice the footsteps until they stopped right at my door.
The door opened before I could shut the screen.
"Whatever that is," Cyrus said, voice low and unreadable, "close it."
I turned in my chair, heart hammering. "You shouldn't be here."
He shut the door behind him. "That makes two of us."
He crossed the room in three steps, stopping beside my desk. His presence filled the space the way storms filled skies too big, too heavy to ignore.
"What are you looking at?" he asked.
"Something you were supposed to tell me," I said quietly.
His eyes flicked to the monitor. "How did you..."
"It popped up on its own," I interrupted. "You told me everything about Kai. You warned me. But you didn't tell me that you were connected to Project Blackwood."
That caught him. Just for a second, but I saw it the faintest crack in his control.
"It's not what you think," he said finally.
"Oh, please don't give me that line." I stood, forcing myself to meet his gaze. "Do you have any idea what's in that file? Your encryption key is all over it. Blackwood's transactions run straight through your network. You think I wouldn't notice?"
Cyrus's jaw flexed. "I was monitoring him, not working with him."
"Then why hide it from me?"
He hesitated, and that silence told me everything.
"You didn't trust me," I said, more softly now. "After everything, you still don't."
His voice was lower when he spoke again. "No, Sienna. I didn't want you caught in this. There are things in that file that can't be unseen."
I almost laughed. "Too late for that."
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The hum of the computer was the only sound between us, faint and steady.
Then Cyrus sighed, the edge slipping from his voice. "You shouldn't be here alone. Someone got into both of our systems. That file wasn't supposed to exist anymore."
"Then who put it back?" I asked.
He didn't answer.
And that silence scared me more than any confession could have.
Outside, the city thundered distant, muted. Inside, everything narrowed down to the space between us: trust and betrayal, fear and something else I didn't want to name.
Finally, he said, "Pack your things. We're leaving."
I blinked. "Leaving?"
"Someone's making their move," Cyrus said. "And if Blackwood's behind it, you're already in the crosshairs."
He took out his phone, dialing before I could protest.
"Damien. Secure the south exit. We're moving in five."
I stared at him, at the man who had spent years mastering calm but whose eyes now burned with something dangerously close to panic.
"Cyrus…" I began.
"Not now," he said.
And for the first time since I'd met him, I realized something that terrified me more than the file, more than Blackwood, more than any of...
Cyrus wasn't in control anymore.