“Did you read all of what I sent?”
Ethan leaned forward. “We did. What we want to know is why you didn’t go through the proper channels.”
She gave an awkward chuckle. “I gave the same info to my superior two days before your meeting. When I came in and found that it was still going through with no modification to the contract, I wanted to make sure you had seen the facts.”
“And if we knew what we were doing?”
“You’d give a company free access to modify your code? Not only leaving you vulnerable, but any company you work with. I like my job and didn’t want to see you go under because of a Trojan horse clause.”
The words hit harder than I expected. Harder because she wasn’t wrong. I hate that I hadn't caught it, but I was starting to think I wasn't supposed to.
That clause hadn’t been in the draft I’d signed off on. Someone had slid it in at the eleventh hour, burying it deep where no one thought I’d catch it in time. And I hadn’t. Not yet. It would have been caught but how much money would it have cost me? What would it have done to my company’s reputation?
Ethan’s eyes flicked toward me. He knew it too. He wouldn’t say a word, but the awareness hung between us. It had been the center of every conversation we'd had all weekend.
My jaw tightened, the only crack I let show. She shouldn’t have had that kind of insight, shouldn’t have had the audacity to weaponize it in front of me. Sabotage, interference, breach of security—fine. But what she’d really done was corner me in my own office with the truth. She was an analyst, for fuck’s sake.
Sanctum flashed behind my eyes. The girl in the white band who stood her ground while wolves circled. Small, out of place, but impossible to ignore. I’d wanted to test her then. Still did.
I leaned back in my chair, folding my hands to keep them steady. “Interesting,” I said, the word smooth even as my pride bristled. “You’ve managed to compromise your integrity,your career, and a multi-million-dollar contract in one move. Efficient, at least.”
Her grip tightened on the folder, but her chin didn’t drop.
Good. I hated easy.
“What do you have here?” Ethan motioned to the folder in her lap. I’d been wondering the same thing.
She hesitated, then slid it onto the desk between us. “Documentation. Notes. I thought you might want proof, not just my word.”
I opened it, scanning the neat columns of code excerpts and annotations. She hadn’t just caught the clause—she’d dissected it, translated the Trojan’s teeth into plain English, mapping out all the potential fallouts. This wasn’t what she emailed me, not all of it at least. She also had a copy of the document I thought I was signing, the one my lead analysts and lawyers had vetted. The one that made sense.
Damn.
I closed the folder slowly, deliberately. “You’ve been busy.”
She gulped. While she looked well-composed to anyone else, I saw her breaking.
“I like working here. I didn’t want to see the company fail, Sir.”
Sir.
Heat curled in my gut. In Sanctum, she’d whispered the word with a tremor in her voice. Here, she said it like it was armor.
Both drove me insane. She drove me insane.
I tapped the folder once with my fingertip, then pushed it back toward her. Victor, Ethan and I had a plan. She was wasted where she was and would be more helpful up here while we got to the bottom of this. We had a few empty desks on the other side of the floor we'd planned on moving her to, but that wasn't going to work for me.
Well, it wouldn’t be the first time I’d gone off script.
“You know what the problem is with people like you, Ms. Rhodes?”
Ethan’s eyes snapped to me. Her eyes narrowed. “People like me?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from cracking.
“You don’t know your place.” I let the silence drag, savoring the flicker of indignation in her gaze. “Analysts monitor systems and compile reports for management. They flag risks, pass them up the chain, and let others make the calls. They don’t dig deep enough to uncover what you found.”
I leaned forward, letting my voice drop until it was just for her. “But...here we are.”
She shifted in her seat, confusion threading through her defiance.
