The email arrived nine days after Nathan sent his anonymous tip, buried in a business filings newsletter he'd subscribed to under three layers of false identity: Halworth Dynamics under state review for regulatory noncompliance; assets frozen pending investigation.Nathan read it twice at his kitchen table, coffee going cold beside the laptop, and felt something settle into place that was quieter than triumph but sturdier. The smallest company in Victor Soren's network, the one nobody would have thought to look at twice, had just become the first domino.It wouldn't make headlines. That was the point. A frozen shell company with a forgettable name wouldn't draw attention from anyone except the people who depended on it — which meant somewhere in Blackridge, a very careful accountant working for Victor Soren was about to discover a hole in a structure that wasn't supposed to have any weak points at all.Nathan closed the laptop and allowed himself exactly thirty seconds of satisfaction

The address Reyes sent led to an all-night diner on the industrial edge of the city, the kind of place with sticky menus and a single tired waitress who didn't look twice at anyone who walked in past midnight. Nathan slid into the back booth across from him, still wearing the gray suit from the gala, the glasses he didn't need pushed up into his hair."You look like you didn't sleep," Reyes said."I haven't tried yet." Nathan kept his voice low despite the empty diner. "What's happening."Reyes turned his coffee cup a quarter turn, a habit Nathan had noticed before, the small physical tell of a man organizing his thoughts before he spoke them out loud. "I still have a contact inside Soren's security operation. Someone who owes me a favor from a long time ago, before any of this started. Tonight they told me Curtis Halvorsen — Soren's head of security — pulled a photo from the gala and started asking questions about a consultant named Ethan Reid."Nathan felt something in his chest go