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“I know that it’s gone. And I know whose job it was to make sure that didn’t happen.” I check my watch. “HR has your severance packages. Security will walk you out. Don’t speak to the press.”

It takes less than two minutes. When I leave the room, two analysts in the hallway flatten themselves against the wall like I’m a passing train.

Good. Fear is efficient.

Back in my office, my brother is pacing.

“You fired them,” Aaron says. It isn’t a question.

“Someone had to answer for it.”

“We don’t know it was them.” He stops in front of my desk. “You don’t have to bring your own ammunition to a firing squad.”

“Thirty minutes until the meeting,” I say. “If you’re going to panic, go do it in your own office.”

He sinks into a chair instead. Aaron is the only person in this building who isn’t afraid of me. He’s been carrying my weight since we were kids.

“You don’t have a conscience, Seb,” he says tiredly. “You have a courtroom in your head where the jury never leaves. Instead of an angel and a devil on your shoulders, you’ve got two versions of Dad. One is disappointed you’ll never be as ruthless as he is. The other one is just mean. He tells you that if you lose this company, you’ve ruined everything and everyone.”

“Don’t.”

“Between the two of them, there’s no room for you to breathe.”

“Go fuck yourself, Aaron.”

He’s heard worse from me. He just shakes his head.

I hate that, for one second this morning, when I should have been thinking about Corinth, I was thinking about a woman in a red dress.

She was gone when I came back to the bedroom on Sunday. No note, no name, just a dent in the pillow and a scrap of black lace under the bed. That was the deal. I’ve never in my life wanted to break a deal so badly.

Focus.

My father’s chair at the head of the obsidian table is empty. The absence speaks louder than he would: Fix this, or don’t bother coming home.

“Twenty-one days,” Evelyn Hart says without preamble. She has chaired this board for eleven years, and in that time I’ve never seen her smile. “Between now and the quarterly meeting. If the stock isn’t back to its baseline and the headlines haven’t turned, we move for a vote of no confidence. You, your brother, and your father will be escorted from the premises.”

The room goes silent.

“Three weeks isn’t enough to stabilize the stock and find a leak,” I say. I keep my voice level, and I watch three board members drop their eyes. “This was a coordinated attack.”

“The stock lost twelve percent in a day, Sebastian,” says Desmond Oberfeld, our oldest board member, who smells faintly of peppermint and malice.

“Give me thirty days.”

“Twenty-one.” Evelyn doesn’t blink. “Your father has retained a crisis consultant. That is his prerogative. But the board has a condition. The consultant reports to you. You hold veto power over every strategy she proposes, and nothing moves without your signature. If this succeeds, it succeeds on your watch. If it fails, it fails on your name.”

Good. I don’t trust outsiders. Now I won’t have to.

“Agreed. Which firm?”

Evelyn glances at her notes. “Archer.”

Aaron’s head turns sharply. Mine doesn’t. I just go very still.

“Archer PR,” I repeat, “was raided by the FBI eight days ago. One of their founding partners is a fugitive. My father hired a firm that’s currently under federal investigation to restore confidence in our company?”

“Every other firm in New York declined,” Evelyn says coolly. “Archer has a strong track record and nothing to lose. Your father thought that was useful.”