She arrived two days later.No advance team, no assistants, no indication of her arrival beyond a message to Jacob's personal line at six in the morning saying she would be at the residence by noon. Derek had read the message at breakfast and spent the intervening hours reading everything Victor had been able to find about her in the time since he'd been told she existed.It wasn't much.Sera Vance, forty-eight. Prosecutorial career spanning twenty-two years across three European jurisdictions. Known for financial crime cases, specifically the kind that required years of patient construction before they could be brought. She had won twelve major prosecutions and had two ongoing cases that were, according to the legal press, proceeding. She had given two interviews in her entire career and both had been about process rather than cases. She had no social media presence and a home address that appeared in no public record Derek could find.The Calloway Group case was not publicly associa

The grey car belonged to a shell company registered in Delaware.Victor had the ownership trail by the afternoon of the first day, which was faster than Derek had expected and which told him Victor had been expecting this kind of investigation and had prepared accordingly. The Delaware shell pointed to a Nevada holding company, which pointed to a registered agent in Miami, which pointed after two more layers of corporate structure to a private intelligence firm called Meridian Consulting Group, headquartered in Washington DC.Not the Calloway Group.Derek read the name twice."Meridian Consulting Group," he said. "Not Meridian Voss Holdings.""Different entity entirely," Victor said over the phone. "No connection to Voss or the Calloway Group that I can find. Meridian Consulting Group does contract intelligence work — corporate due diligence, competitive analysis, surveillance. Legitimate business, aggressive methods.""Who hired them?"Victor paused. "That's where it gets interesting

Derek landed back in the city at four in the afternoon.Harlan met him at the residence door with the particular expression he used when something had happened that required immediate attention but was not an emergency, a distinction Harlan made with considerable precision."What is it?" Derek said.Harlan handed him his phone.The article was from a society and lifestyle publication, the kind that occupied the space between legitimate journalism and deliberate damage, that traded in the personal lives of wealthy families and knew exactly how to frame a fact to make it function as an accusation without technically being one.The headline was: "West Group Succession: The Adopted Daughter's New Role"Derek read it standing in the entrance hall with his coat still on.The piece was four hundred words. It described Fae as Jacob West's adopted daughter, factually correct who had, since the arrival of Jacob's newly designated biological heir, moved into the heir's private residence. It note

Sera called at six-fifteen in the evening.Derek was in the kitchen with Jacob, the two of them working through the West Group's Eastern European portfolio, the same markets that had originally required the Voss arrangement, which now needed to be unwound cleanly as part of the prosecution's groundwork. Jacob had the institutional memory. Derek had the structural analysis. Together they were building a picture of what the portfolio would look like after the Calloway Group's influence was removed from it.It was useful work. It was also, Derek acknowledged to himself, a way of being present with his father in the particular mode they had discovered worked best for them side by side, doing something real, talking around the edges of the things that mattered while they did.His phone rang. He looked at the screen and excused himself."He called," Sera said when he picked up. No preamble. No greeting."When?" Derek said."Two hours ago. We spoke for ninety minutes." A pause that had a dif

Victor arrived at eight with coffee he'd brought himself, which meant he'd been up since before six and hadn't stopped to eat, which was Victor's version of urgency.Derek was already at the desk. The foundation report was open. Section four had his numbers now he'd added them at five in the morning after two hours of sleep, which was enough, which was always enough if you'd learned to treat sleep as provisional.Victor sat across from him and opened his laptop without preamble."Vael's next move," Victor said. "I've been modeling it since last night.""Tell me," Derek said."He's not going to move against you directly," Victor said. "Not yet. The visibility is too high — Petra Walsh is watching the West Group story, Sera Vance's case is building, the board transition is public. A direct action against Derek West at this moment would accelerate the prosecution rather than stop it." He paused. "So he moves against the case instead.""Voss," Derek said."Voss's testimony," Victor said.