Chapter 4

Friday, 10 a.m. The Apex Capital global townhall webinar went live right on schedule.

Over five thousand employees tuned in simultaneously—New York headquarters, London, Tokyo, every satellite office in between.

The highest-level all-hands the firm held all year.

I sat in a secure conference room at Maeve's law firm, a laptop open on the table before me.

Last night's ambush in the B3 garage had been contained with breathtaking speed.

Landon and the senior partners threw everything they had at an internal lockdown—outside counsel quietly arranged bail for the men arrested, and by yesterday afternoon, Managing Partner Warren Stroud had personally signed the order citing "serious disciplinary violations and suspected corporate espionage" to kill my credentials and revoke my building access.

Their logic was pure Wall Street: money and power bury anything.

I hadn't shown up at the office clutching evidence.

So in their minds, I'd crumbled. Fled. Was done.

A corpse they could pin anything on.

On the screen, Warren sat before the camera in an immaculate charcoal suit, smiling warmly as he read this year's promotion list.

"…After careful deliberation by the board, the following individual has been named Senior Partner. Please join me in congratulating—Miss Camilla Vance."

The feed cut to Camilla.

Pristine white power suit, every strand of hair in place, eyes faintly reddened—just enough to suggest vulnerability without crossing into unprofessional.

A masterclass in controlled optics.

"Thank you, Warren. Thank you to the board." She dipped her chin toward the camera, voice steady but threaded with a careful tremor.

"Standing here today, I'm truly honored. But beyond gratitude, I want to address something that matters deeply to all of us—our culture."

A measured breath. Her jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, as though she were fighting to hold herself together.

"Recently, some deeply troubling events have come to light within our firm. Certain individuals who would stop at nothing to climb the ladder have used dirty dealings to contaminate the Apex name—an institution we've all worked so hard to build."

A pause, letting the silence land.

"As a woman on the Street, I know what it takes to earn a seat at this table. But we must never trade our integrity for advancement. Not here. Not ever."

The internal chat feed exploded.

[Sloane is a disgrace to this industry!]

[Compliance needs to launch a full investigation!]

[We need a clean workplace—SEC should step in and pull her license permanently!]

I watched the screen fill with righteous outrage, my expression blank. Picked up the coffee beside me, took a slow sip.

Camilla was still performing. Voice cracking at precisely the right moments, eyes glistening under the ring light.

"I'm calling on the firm to establish stricter ethical review protocols—to root out the moral rot poisoning Apex from within, and restore the integrity we all deserve…"

"It's time." I set the cup down and turned to the lead digital forensics specialist beside me.

He flashed an OK sign, then brought his fingers down hard on the Enter key—

Executing a federal court order authorizing emergency network seizure, backed by parallel DOJ and SEC investigations.

In the exact instant five thousand employees were typing furious support beneath Camilla's quivering voice, the live feed stuttered violently.

Then her face was ripped away.

The broadcast window split cleanly in two.

Left: Warren and Camilla, frozen in naked panic.

Right: me.

Plain white button-down, hair pulled back in a clean knot.

Behind me, the Department of Justice seal on the wall—because this wasn't Maeve's conference room anymore.

Forty minutes ago, two federal agents had escorted me into a secure briefing suite inside the downtown federal building.

Those same two FBI Criminal Investigative Division agents now stood flanking me, their expressions giving away exactly nothing.

Five thousand people in the chat. Dead silence.

"Get her off—get her OFF!" Warren lunged toward something off-camera, patrician composure disintegrating in real time.

"Somebody kill the goddamn feed!"

"Don't bother, Warren." I looked directly into the camera, my voice traveling through the hijacked priority channel, crystal clear, into every headset.

"Your internal memo yesterday was very specific. You told the compliance committee, on the record, that I'd built an unauthorized backdoor into the firm's core servers."

I leaned forward, gaze cutting through the screen, locking onto Camilla's bloodless face.

"Congratulations. To facilitate the FBI's ongoing criminal investigation, a federal judge signed a Rule 41 search warrant with expanded jurisdiction this morning—and authorized us to reverse-activate that very 'backdoor.'"

A half-beat of silence.

"For the next ten minutes, this broadcast is under full federal supervision. System privileges are locked at the root level. No one on your end can shut it down."

On the left panel, Camilla's body began to shake—an involuntary tremor she couldn't mask with performance anymore.

The composure she'd sculpted all morning crumbled in seconds, her face going white as bone.

Beside her, sweat broke across Warren's forehead, his hand frozen mid-reach toward a phone that could do nothing for him.

"Camilla." My voice dropped, quiet and surgical. "You said something just now that I actually agree with—

"Apex does need a thorough ethical review."

My mouth curved into a razor-thin smile.

"So today, I brought the FBI to help the firm take out the trash."