Julian was careful the first evening.

He made dinner — something he had apparently never done before, based on the way Victoria watched him from the doorway with barely concealed irritation.

He opened a bottle of wine.

He asked me questions about my day in the tone of a man performing normalcy for an audience he believed was only me.

I answered everything simply.

I did not push.

I had learned, in six years of compliance work, that the fastest way to make someone talk is to make them feel safe.

By ten o'clock, Julian had finished most of the wine.

"I want to be honest with you," he said.

"About why I wanted to get married."

I set my glass down.

"I'm listening."

"My father's business has been under some pressure lately.

Financial pressure.

And I thought — having a partner with your background, your experience — it would be stabilizing.

For both of us."

"Stabilizing," I said.

"You understand how these things work.

Reviews.

Audits.

You know how to read the landscape." He leaned forward slightly.

"If there were ever a situation where I needed guidance — professional guidance — I'd want to know I could come to you."

"What kind of guidance?"

He smiled.

It was a careful smile.

"The kind that keeps a family protected."

In my left ear, I heard Claire's voice, very quiet: *Good.

Keep going.*

"Julian," I said, "are you asking me to use my former position at Hargrove to help you with something?"

He paused.

Just long enough.

"I'm asking if you'd be willing to have a conversation," he said.

"About what the review team might already know.

About Meridian Crest."

There it was.

"What is Meridian Crest?" I said.

"A holding structure.

Nothing complicated.

But if the review team has flagged it —"

"I'd need to know more about what's in it," I said.

"Before I could tell you anything."

He nodded slowly.

"Of course."

He stood and went to the small desk in the corner of the dining room.

He unlocked the top drawer with a key from his pocket and removed a manila folder.

He set it on the table in front of me.

"This is the structure," he said.

"Take a look.

Tell me if you recognize anything from the review documentation."

I opened the folder.

Inside were transfer records, routing numbers, account names.

Meridian Crest at the top.

Below it, a web of subsidiary names I recognized from Robert's document and several I had never seen before.

And at the bottom of the second page, in a column labeled *authorized signatories*, were six names.

Robert Mercer.

Julian Mercer.

Victoria Mercer.

Gerald Howe.

And two names I had not seen before.

One of them was my former colleague at Hargrove — a man named Dennis Farr who had left the company abruptly eight months ago.

The other was a sitting federal judge.

I kept my face completely still.

"This is detailed," I said.

"Can you tell if the review team has seen this structure?"

"I'd need a day to think through what I remember," I said.

"I don't want to give you inaccurate information."

"Of course." He closed the folder.

"Take your time."

He did not put the folder back in the drawer.

He left it on the table.

I went to bed at eleven o'clock, said goodnight to Julian in the hallway, and closed the bedroom door.

I sat on the edge of the bed and pressed the small button on the device beneath my collar twice — the signal Claire and I had agreed on.

Thirty seconds later, my phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.

*We heard everything.

The judge's name — we're running it now.

Stay in the house.

Do not touch the folder.

Tomorrow morning.*

I set the phone face-down on the nightstand.

Through the wall, I could hear Julian on his phone.

His voice was too low to make out words.

But the call lasted forty minutes.

When it ended, the house went quiet.

I did not sleep.