The interrogation room wasn't a dungeon, but it might as well have been. Sleek glass walls, dim lights, and a table polished so clean Lena could see her reflection in it. Across from her sat Adrian Kane pressed suit, cufflinks glinting, smile sharpened like a blade. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. His calm was the threat.
"Ms. Voss," he began, sliding a folder across the table. "These documents suggest you authorized a transfer twelve million hours before Cross Enterprises announced their merger deal. The timing, I'm sure you'll agree, is… suspicious."
Lena didn't touch the folder. "You mean convenient for whoever planted that paperwork."
Adrian leaned back, steepling his fingers. "That's a serious accusation. Against whom?"
She kept her tone level. "I didn't accuse anyone. But you seem eager to hear a name."
His smirk twitched. Not much, but enough.
For thirty minutes he circled her with insinuations, each one designed to chip at her composure. He mentioned off shore accounts she had never seen, emails she never sent, meetings she never attended. Each piece was neat, precise too precise. A puzzle built not from facts, but from someone's script.
And Adrian played it like a man convinced the ending was already written.
"Ms. Voss," he said at last, voice low and deliberate. "The board wants answers. Cross Enterprises cannot afford a scandal of this magnitude. Unless you cooperate, your career and your freedom hang by a thread."
That was the moment Lena saw it.
Adrian's phrasing wasn't neutral. He hadn't said "the law wants answers." He'd said "the board." She replayed his words in her head sharp, deliberate, but sloppy enough to betray allegiance.
Lena leaned forward, meeting his gaze dead on. "You talk like you're protecting the company. But I thought this was an investigation."
Adrian's eyes flickered. One heartbeat. Then another.
"You're mistaken," he said smoothly. "I serve only the facts."
She smiled, slow and dangerous. "No you serve whoever hired you. And you just told me who that is."
For the first time, Adrian's mask cracked. Barely. But Lena saw it. The way his jaw tightened, the way his pen paused mid-tap.
She pressed harder. "This isn't about me moving money. It's about Isabella Rhodes and her friends on the board trying to clean house before Nathaniel Cross notices. They sent you in here with rehearsed evidence and a script. Trouble is" She tapped the folder with one finger. "you rehearsed it so well, you slipped."
Adrian's voice iced over. "Careful, Ms. Voss."
"No," Lena said, her voice steady. "You be careful. Because if I walk out of this room and make one call, the first question everyone's going to ask is why the board's legal bulldog keeps using company language in a criminal investigation. You're compromised. And I think you know it."
The silence stretched. A bead of sweat traced down Adrian's temple.
For the first time, the balance shifted.
Lena had been on defense since the moment she walked into this nightmare. But now? Now Adrian was the one calculating, scrambling behind his calm. She could almost hear the gears grinding as he tried to claw back control.
"You're bluffing," he said finally. "You have no evidence."
Lena stood, pushing the chair back slow, deliberate, her heels clicking like a countdown. "Maybe. Or maybe the evidence is you. Either way, I'm done playing."
Adrian's hand twitched toward the folder, as though pulling it back would erase the exchange. His smile was gone. His mask cracked wide open.
The door opened before he could recover.
Nathaniel Cross walked in. Not the polished CEO Lena remembered, but storm-eyed, jaw like stone, power radiating off him in waves. He didn't look at Adrian. He looked straight at Lena.
For the first time in weeks, she wasn't the one standing alone.
Adrian cleared his throat, scrambling for composure. "Mr. Cross this is highly irregular. I was conducting"
Nathaniel cut him off without raising his voice. "You were conducting a witch hunt. It's over."
Lena held her ground. Her heart thundered, not because Nathaniel was here but because she realized she had already shifted the board before he arrived.
She had stood up to Adrian. She had cracked his armor.
And Nathaniel had walked in to see her already strong.
Adrian's eyes flicked between them, calculation sparking like lightning. He had lost the round, but Lena knew what that look meant. This wasn't finished.
If anything, it had just begun.