I typed back:Since when do I take orders?
His response came immediately:Since never. That’s exactly why I’m asking instead.
Something warm moved through my chest despite the anxiety coiled beneath it. I could picture him in that boardroom — jaw set, signet ring turning between his fingers, storm-gray eyes sharp and steady in a room full of men who wanted his head on a platter.
For the first time since this whole catastrophe began, I realized I was frightened. Not for my career. Not even for my safety.
For him.
I typed:I’m watching. Deal with it.
No response. Either he was too busy or he’d learned there was no point.
Probably both.
The press conference started at noon.
I’d commandeered a small conference room at the Tribune, claiming I needed space for follow-up research. In reality, I needed to watch Sebastian face the consequences of my investigation without an audience witnessing my reactions.
The live feed loaded on my laptop — the Laurent Enterprises logo behind a podium bristling with microphones, reporters packed into the room with the particular electric anticipation of people who had come for either a cover-up or a collapse.
When Sebastian walked out, I forgot to breathe.
He looked exhausted. The midnight wool suit was impeccable, but the shadows under his eyes told the real story — the hours of calls, the weight of an empire in crisis, the specific cost of a man who had spent the night dismantling his own defenses. His movements carried something I hadn’t seen before. Not the controlled grace of the boardroom. Something rawer. Something that looked, impossibly, like relief.
He stepped to the podium. The room fell silent.
I leaned forward without meaning to.
He laid it out cleanly — the independent investigation, Hartley’s termination, cooperation with federal authorities, theforensic audit, the remediation fund, his own compensation suspended. Each statement landing like a deliberate demolition charge, placed with precision.
A reporter pushed forward. “What about your relationship with the journalist who broke this story? Sources suggest your personal involvement with Ms. Rivera may have influenced how this information came to light.”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “Ms. Rivera is an exceptional investigative journalist who pursued this story through her own skill and determination. Any suggestion that our acquaintance compromised her integrity or mine is both inaccurate and insulting to her professionalism.”
“But you are personally involved with her?”
A single beat of silence. Long enough to be deliberate. “My personal life isn’t relevant to the facts of this case.”
Not a denial. I rewound the beat of silence in my head and understood exactly what he’d done.
I closed the laptop before the questions could get sharper.
My hands were shaking slightly.
He’d just stood in front of cameras and torn down everything he’d built. Systematically. On the record. Without softening a single edge.
And when they’d come for me, he’d defended me in the only way that mattered — by telling the truth about what I was.
I sat with that for a long moment in the darkened conference room.
Then my phone lit up with a text from Marco.
Em. Check your email. Found something on Hartley’s offshore accounts.
I pulled up my inbox and found a file attached — bank statements showing a pattern of transfers that hadn’t appeared in my original research. Money moving from Hartley’s accountsto shell companies in Cyprus, routing through a maze of intermediaries before arriving at their final destination.
Victor Corsetti wasn’t just Richard Hartley’s benefactor.
