"I should tell you the rest," I said. "Before anything starts."
"Okay."
I found a small room off the corridor. Spare equipment and a folding table.
The McCabes stayed in the hall. Presence without intrusion.
Eamon leaned against the table, arms folded. Patient.
I kept my voice level. "Redwater. The principal I was protecting. They hit his car. Planned ambush. Someone leaked his schedule."
Eamon didn't blink.
"Information only three people had access to," I continued. "I was one of them."
He might have been expecting a confession. I didn’t give him one. I was making sure we were aligned on what that story meant now before anyone tried to use it against me.
"I didn't leak it. And I couldn't prove that."
My body remembered: the harder you tried to prove innocence, the more people heard guilt. I kept my hands still.
"The principal survived, but the accident destroyed his knee. Career-ending injury. My firm terminated me. Quietly. Efficiently."
Eamon's expression didn't change, but his gaze sharpened. Tracking structure instead of emotion.
"One of the other two people who had access disappeared right after," I added. "No explanation. Didn't help me. Didn't help anyone."
Eamon exhaled slowly through his nose.
I looked at the scratches on the folding table. Felt the old anger stir, cold and clinical.
"The worst part wasn't losing the job. It was the shape of it. The system didn't ask to know the truth of what happened. It needed a piece to make the puzzle complete."
I looked into his eyes.
"They didn't decide I was guilty. They decided I was plausible. And once that happens, it doesn't matter what's true. It matters what's easy."
Eamon nodded. "And if something goes wrong here—"
"It confirms what people already believe."
Silence for a moment, and then Eamon spoke quietly. "Reputations are gravitational."
He understood, and he didn't need to pat me on the head. We left the room.
Do-hyun waited near the security operations room, posture tight. He held his tablet tightly in two hands.
"He's not doing anything visible," Do-hyun said. "No overt violations. Nothing that can be traced to him."
"What he's doing is worse," I said.
"Yes."
We walked into the room. Monitors lined the wall. Camera feeds in grids. Venue map with access points marked. People in headsets moving as if they belonged there.
Do-hyun angled his tablet toward me.
"He's been altering systems. Small changes. Approvals rerouted. Responsibilities diffused across departments. Nothing a single person can point to and call sabotage."
