Page 110 of Keller

The doors open to a marble lobby. Ridge moves toward the street entrance without breaking stride. Our car idles at the curb. Newman holds the back door open.

We slide into the leather interior. The door closes, sealing out the street noise.

Ridge has his phone against his ear before we pull into traffic.

"When did the flag come through?"

I watch the side of his face. His expression reveals nothing.

"Preliminary only?"

He listens. His thumb taps once against his thigh.

"Who authorized the data pull?"

Traffic crawls past the window. Houston's evening commute. Brake lights stretching toward the horizon.

"Keep it contained. I want our general counsel on standby, but no formal engagement until I say otherwise. Lock down every single person that works for us, from presidents to the janitors. No one talks to anyone without our counsel present."

I run possibilities. It could be insurance pressure from the October claims, or what's left of Gulf Meridian pushing back after we exposed their routing scheme, or a regulatory sweep triggered by the fentanyl precursor intercept.

Ridge ends the call and stares at the phone for three seconds. Then drops it into his jacket pocket.

"Private terminal," he tells Newman.

The car merges onto the highway, and skyline glass gives way to industrial sprawl.

Ridge turns to face me fully. "Wells flagged it a few weeks ago, but we determined it was nothing to worry about. Fuck if we shit the bed on this one."

"Preliminary,” I repeat the word, trying to find some silver lining, to lower the temperature. Last time he was this hot about something, which happened to be our father's murder, he kidnapped someone.

"Not public, yet, and not subpoena stage." Ridge's voice stays level. "But formal enough that we need counsel aware. They're pulling executive override authority logs, compliance metadata. Everything connected to any business we did in Q4."

"Who initiated it?"

Ridge's jaw tightens. "I don't know. But I'm going to find out, and he better hope he has the world's goddamned best security team."

The car turns onto a private access road and drives parallel to the chain link fencing securing the area. The hangar lights glow amber against the darkening sky.

We pull through the gate where the G650 waits on the tarmac. The engines are already warming.

Ridge opens his door and pauses.

"This isn't random, Keller. Someone pointed them at those specific dates. We've been cooperative, and nothing so far should have warranted this. Wells has been monitoring the homicide investigation, and nothing that came up there suggested there was anything tied to Stone Intermodal."

I step out beside him. The sharp scent of jet fuel cuts through the humid air. We climb the stairs without speaking.

Once we’re airborne, Houston flattens beneath a sheet of gray cloud. The sky shifts from bruised orange to deepening blue as the sun disappears behind us.

Ridge sits across from me, phone pressed to his ear, laptop open between us.

“Walk me through the metadata structure,” Wells says through the speaker.

Ridge listens, jaw set, eyes scanning the screen.

I let the details move past me. Something about override logs, timestamp clusters, and access credentials. Wells stresses that we need to file away what matters.

It’s procedural for now.