Elena didn’t get another message that night.
The silence should have been a relief. It wasn’t. She kept checking the phone anyway, the screen lighting up the small dark room every time she reached for it. By morning her eyes felt raw and her thoughts had the brittle edge that came from too little sleep and too much turning over the same ground.
She arrived at the office earlier than she meant to. Adrian was already there. He looked like he had slept about as well as she had.
“No further contact?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Good. That doesn’t mean it’s over. It means they’re waiting to see what we do next.”
He handed her a short printed note. “Legal finalised the response to Crowe’s audit request. It’s clean and limited. You may be asked to confirm three factual points in writing: your app
