"Condition one," I held up a finger, keeping my voice firm. "I need fifteen thousand dollars in cash delivered to St. Jude’s Hospital by two o'clock today. Ten thousand for my mother's ICU deposit, and five thousand for Joan to hold for her immediate needs. Not an offshore account tomorrow—today."
"Done," Julian said without missing a beat. "And the rest?"
"Condition two," I held up a second finger. "You don't touch Adrian's primary server interface directly. I am not handing you open admin access that traces directly back to my terminal ID. I will give you filtered, high-level structural logs of Project Alpha—enough for you to outbid him on the downtown property, but not enough to trigger his automatic security alarms while I'm still sitting at my desk."
Julian frowned slightly, evalua
