Orla’s eyes flicked to him like a hunted animal that needs to know the predator’s scent. “You’re involved,” she said. She sounded like stone crashing against a keep.
He shrugged. “Business partners take risks.”
It was a moment of bright, searing honesty: Julian was not a gracious savior; he was core currency in the thing we’d been trying to unravel.
Then Tyler did something I didn’t expect. He stood up in his loose, shabby way and walked to the back of the room. His hand stayed in his jacket and came out with a small, cracking USB—one of the very things Julian’s people had used to stage their “bonus uploads.” He walked up to Julian, slammed the drive on the table, and said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “We found the backup. Someone sells the mirror from inside your network. I can s
