The first internal rupture didn't come from Marcus.
It came from someone closer.
Aaliyah was reviewing a new batch of submitted documentation, emails, timelines, internal memos forwarded through encrypted channels, when a name caught her eye.
Lena Park.
She froze.
Lena had been a senior communications strategist at Blackwood Industries. Public-facing. Trusted. Careful with language in a way that bordered on surgical.
Aaliyah opened the file slowly.
Inside was a resignation letter dated eighteen months earlier, never made public. Beneath it, an attached memo, marked confidential, detailing repeated instructions to "soften," "reframe," and "delay" reports involving internal misconduct.
The final line of the memo was highlighted.
Delay until attention moves elsewhere.
Aaliyah felt a familiar, sickening clarity settle in.
This wasn't new behavior.
This was infrastructure.
She forwarded the file to Rowan and Elise immediately.
