James’s POV
Some battles aren’t fought in boardrooms.
They’re fought in whispers. In data trails. In silence.
I spent the next forty-eight hours dissecting every security log tied to Melinda’s firm. My people — ex-CIA, now private intelligence — moved fast and quiet. Within hours, they’d uncovered the breach. An internal backdoor. A mirrored drive copied offsite. And all of it traced to one location:
Vanessa Holt’s personal assistant.
I didn’t tell Melinda.
Not yet.
She needed air, not gasoline.
Instead, I had the assistant followed. Phones tapped. Drives cloned. By the end of the second day, we had everything: email threads between Vanessa and Andrew, forged reports, timelines, payment slips.
And one damning thread I hadn’t expected.
From Vanessa
“She played you, James. She kne
