A politician can survive a corporate scandal, but they will burn their own palace to the ground the moment their peers discover they are keeping all the stolen gold for themselves.
The air inside the luxury high rise suite overlooking the glowing Beijing financial district was warm, carrying the faint scent of green tea and fresh ozone from the active cooling towers nearby. Outside the floor to ceiling glass windows, the massive neon billboards of the capital cast a shifting tapestry of crimson and gold light across the polished dark wood furniture. Ethan Vance stood dead center in the room, his large frame completely stationary as he stared at the glowing blue data streams hovering above the central digital projector table. Sarah Vance sat directly to his left, her fingers tapping a rapi
