"This is what I do. I win impossible rooms. I change the narrative. I don’t disappear—I become the reason they can’t afford to lose me."
The tears are gone. Only steel remains.
Outside, Minneapolis gleams—no longer a threat, but a battlefield. And I’ve just found my strategy.
"Let’s get to work," I say.
And for the first time since Easton’s threat, I believe it. I can win this.
25
Sloane
The office is quiet this early. I should be working on quarterly projections, but instead I'm hunting for the truth about Vivian Lamore.
I sink onto the couch and pull my laptop closer, opening the folder labeled "V.L." Everything I've collected since that moment at the coffee machine when Anna Reyes went white as a sheet and fled like I'd threatened her life.
The Columbus staff photo stares back at me. Anna's open smile. Vivian's guarded expression. Both of them younger, happier, before whatever happened—happened.
"I don't know what you mean."
Anna's lie was terrible. Unconvincing. But effective, because what could I do? I had timing and a photograph. I had Vivian's paranoia and Anna's terror. I had coincidence, not proof.
I need proof.
My mind drifts to that photo on Vivian's screen. The picture of her and Jake Morrison, arms around each other, both grinning at a team event. The photo she was staring at until she noticed me. The photo that meant something.
I've been circling around the timing of Vivian's departure, but I never actually investigated Morrison himself. Whathappened to Columbus's golden boy captain who retired at twenty-nine?
Twenty minutes of digging later, I've pieced together what the team tried to bury: Morrison's retirement coincided with whispers of infidelity and "internal restructuring." His ex-wife's family had major sponsor connections. A local news article about "inappropriate conduct" has been scrubbed from the internet—but the Google cache remains.
Morrison had a scandal. Vivian left in the aftermath. Anna ran from my questions like her life depended on it.
This is the thread.
I grab my phone and check the time. 7:47 a.m. Early, but not obscenely so. I need to catch Anna before she disappears into meetings, before she has time to see me coming.
I find her at her desk, headphones in, already deep in spreadsheets. She doesn't notice me approach until I'm standing right beside her.
"Anna."
She jumps, yanking out her earbuds. The look that crosses her face—pure fear—tells me everything I need to know.
"Sloane. Hi. I didn't—"
"I need to talk to you." My voice is steady, but my hands shake. "And this time, you can't say 'nothing comes to mind.'"
Her face goes pale. "I have a meeting—"
"No, you don't. Not for another hour." I lean against her desk, lowering my voice. "Anna, I know about Jake Morrison. I know he retired the same summer Vivian left. I know there was a scandal—something bad enough that the team scrubbed articles from the internet. And I know it's happening to me now."
She stares at me, frozen.
"Someone is setting me up," I continue, the words tumbling out desperate and raw. "They're going to try to make me look incompetent or worse. And I think Vivian is using the same playbook on me that someone used on her in Columbus." I pause, meeting her eyes. "You have to tell me what happened. Please."
Anna's breathing goes shallow. Her fingers clench around her pen so hard I think it might snap.
"There's a conference room," she whispers finally. "Second floor. Empty until nine."
