It took Gavin five days to build a picture of Dominic Cross solid enough to act on, and what he found did nothing to ease the tight, watchful feeling that had settled over the 50th floor.
Cross-Holdings had no public office, no listed employees beyond a skeleton legal filing, and a portfolio of investments that, on paper, looked like nothing more than a wealthy man's quiet diversification. But when Gavin cross-referenced the timing of those investments against six years of Vance Enterprises history, a pattern emerged that made even his usual chaotic energy go quiet and focused: every major crisis the company had weathered — the Apex leak, the compliance frame-up, even, further back, a boardroom dispute Alexander barely remembered — had been preceded, within weeks, by a small, unremarkable
