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"I see," he says.

"We need everything," Helena tells him.

Philip looks at her, then smiles — slowly, deliberately. "I'll help."

Philip’s smile fades slightly, “Under normal circumstances , I wouldn't touch this,” he taps the swift number. “But this account network crossed several organizations that i owe favors, they don’t particularly like the competition,”

“So in a way…” i mutter , “... we are cleaning up your mess,”

My relief lasts approximately one second.

"Good," Helena says.

Philip raises one finger. "But still I am helping you handle a case. So on one condition."

Of course. Helena exhales, already irritated. "What?"

"Dinner."

I blink. Once. Twice. Surely I misheard. Philip remains completely serious, and Helena stares at him with the expression of a woman doing rapid and unflattering calculations. The silence stretches long enough to become its own answer.

Then she says, "Fine."

I nearly choke. Helena notices immediately, and the amusement surfaces in her eyes. "Oh, relax."

Philip laughs. "I like her."

"Unfortunately," Helena replies, "the feeling isn't mutual."

Philip beams. "Yet."

I decide I do not understand their dynamic, stop trying to, and find that life improves immediately.

The documents arrive, and everything changes.

Boxes, folders, records, transaction histories, account ownership files — years of hidden financial activity stacked across the table in patient, damning rows. Helena and I spend hours reviewing them. The evidence carries the conversation on its own, building its case one page at a time.

Transfer after transfer. Business after business. Fraud after fraud. The scale becomes staggering the further in we go, a criminal architecture so carefully assembled that admiring it feels almost involuntary.

Then I find it. A signature.

I go still. Helena notices immediately. "What?"

I slide the file toward her. She studies it, then reaches for another, then another. The same signature appears again and again across documents that should have no connection to each other — the ledger Juniper discovered, the offshore transfers, the shell companies, the fraudulent payments, the hidden accounts. All of it connected. All of it carrying the same authorization.

One signature.

Marissa.

The room falls silent. I swipe through the page, then the next, then the next, every road finally arriving at the same destination. Marissa isn't adjacent to the fraud, isn't accidentally connected to it, isn't a witness or a passing figure caught at the wrong angle. She is at the center of it. She built the center of it. The transport companies, the lawsuits, the tax fraud, the business closures, the sabotage, the missing records, the pressured witnesses — everything traces back to her, and the full weight of that lands slowly and completely.

Helena closes the final folder, slowly, carefully, then looks at me. "Well."

Normally I hate that word. Not today. I meet her gaze. "Is it enough?"

She already knows what I'm asking. "Warrants?"

I nod.