Page 231 of Merciless Daddy

“I was in bed,” she said. Her voice was thin but steady. “It was unproductive.”

“You were drugged.”

“So was Yelena. I do not have time to be delicate about it.”

Pietro’s jaw tightened. He reached for her elbow anyway. Angela let him guide her to the chair, which told me more about how badly she hurt than her words did.

She opened her laptop.

“I think I found the pressure point,” she said.

Serafina leaned forward. “Show us.”

Angela pulled up Lev’s sworn capacity statement.

“He claims Yelena is incapable of independent decisions,” she said. “That Sal manipulated her. That she cannot meaningfully control her companies.”

My hands curled against the table.

“Gianni cannot use that claim and then produce a private signature from Yelena while she is missing,” Angela continued. “A signature obtained from an allegedly compromised woman, in private, under the authority of the man she was supposedly fleeing? It would collapse in court.”

“So he’s stuck,” I said.

“Yes.” Angela looked at me. “He has to show Yelena live. Alert. Competent. Apparently voluntary. He needs her voice and face to grant him authority.”

The thought of her sitting before a camera with Gianni just outside the frame made my stomach turn.

But she would be alive.

She would have a chance to see us.

Angela opened another document.

“Yelena suspended Gianni’s access to the clean fleet. The company bylaws permit a voting proxy only through a Halberd-certified corporate terminal. There is live facial authentication. Live voice authentication. Hardware certificate verification.”

“Can he forge it somehow?” Pietro asked.

“Not remotely. Not from a random laptop. The certificate is physically locked to the terminal.”

“How many terminals?”

“Four that can authorize a control transfer.” Angela counted them on her fingers. “Northbridge was destroyed. Manhattan is under federal scrutiny. The Chicago unit is under my control.”

“That leaves Mill Basin,” Serafina said.

“And one records facility in New Jersey,” Angela replied. “Hidden under a Halberd archival shell. Lev has access to both.”

“What if he just registers a new terminal?” Pietro asked.

“A new terminal can’t be provisioned without Yelena’s live authorization or the signatures of three independent directors. Gianni has neither.”

Tonio leaned over the map.

“We hit them both. Mill Basin. New Jersey.”

“Not yet,” Angela said. “If we hit early, Gianni moves her. We need him to believe he has time. We need him to attempt the authentication.”

“When he does,” I said, understanding now, “the hardware certificate tells us which terminal he used.”