Sora ran Titan like she always had, which meant Jake found out about most of what she was doing by accident.He was at his desk reading through a supplier contract when she knocked and came in without waiting for an answer, which was just how she operated."The CFO admitted the projection error," she said, sitting down across from him.Jake looked up. "You mean the one from page four?""That's the one.""Did he figure it out himself?""I left him alone in a room with it for forty minutes." She crossed her legs. "He came out looking very pleased with himself."Jake thought about that. "You already knew.""I've known since last Tuesday.""And you just let him sit in a room with it.""He's more useful when he thinks he caught something," Sora said. "What's wrong with the contract?"Jake turned it around and slid it across the desk. "Clause fourteen. The liability cap doesn't match the rec

She forwarded back: {I saw. Already sent to Mei Ling. Give it until noon.}He texted back: {Noon for what?}{For Mei Ling to have something useful. She works fast when it matters.}Jake put his phone away and went to his next meeting.At ten-fifteen Sora sent him a document while they were both sitting in a budget review. He opened it expecting the procurement numbers they'd been discussing.It was a threat assessment. Patricia Kwan. Three pages. Color coded by risk category. Cross referenced against the Nexus Group findings and the Horizon Analysis signal. Notes in the margin that were precise enough to make Jake feel slightly inadequate about his own analytical output.He looked up. Sora was watching the CFO explain something on a slide. Completely attentive. Professionally present.Jake texted her under the table.{When did you build this?}She didn't look at him. Typed one-handed.{Last nig

At five-thirty Mei Ling sent a message to both of them.{Secure conference room. Now.}Jake got there first. Sora was thirty seconds behind him. Mei Ling was already at the screen with three property records pulled up."Three purchases," Mei Ling said. "All completed in the last six weeks. All within a block of Titan. All run through different buyers that trace back to the same source if you follow them far enough."Jake looked at the map. Six red dots around Titan's building."Who's at the source?" Sora asked."A holding firm registered across three countries in a way designed to be hard to trace," Mei Ling said. "It took me four hours." She pulled up the name. "Nexus Group."The three of them looked at the map."Six weeks," Sora said. "They started positioning while we were in Antarctica.""Before we even came back," Mei Ling said."They were ready for us to win," Jake said.Sora looked at him. "What?""They weren't waiting to see how things resolved. They were positioned before the

Elena knocked at quarter past four and came in without waiting for an answer, which was just how Elena operated.She sat down across from Jake. Not on the desk. In the actual chair. She had a folder in her hand that she set on her lap and didn't open."Lily got the job," she said."She did," Jake said."I heard she negotiated her own terms in the first fifteen minutes."Jake looked up from the amendment. "How do you know that?""Mr. Harrison mentioned it to Magnus. Magnus mentioned it to me in the elevator." Elena shrugged. "This building has no secrets despite being half under construction." She tapped the folder on her lap. "I looked up her work. After she got shot I was curious about who she was. The Meridian contracts story she broke last year was really sharp. She sat on information for three weeks while everyone else rushed to publish and when she finally released it there was nothing anyone could dispute.""Yeah," Jake said. "That's Lily.""She's going to be good here," Elena s

"Mei Ling sends me updates."Jake made a mental note to have a conversation with Mei Ling about that. "I'm sleeping adequately," he said."Go home," Marcus said. "Carter Voss isn't going anywhere tonight. Deal with him tomorrow."Jake ended the call. Sat at his desk. Looked at his phone.Opened Patricia Kwan's background file. Read through the clearance level again. The classification. The fifteen years of board placements. Six companies over three continents. All of them adjacent to something significant.He called Mei Ling."I need you to flag everything we have on Nexus to Patricia Kwan's contact information," Jake said. "The properties. Carter Voss. The lobby man. All of it.""Now?" Mei Ling said."Right now. I want to see how fast she responds and what she leads with."Mei Ling sent it. Jake watched the time on his phone.Eleven minutes later Patricia responded. One sentence.{I h