"Who are you looking for?"

Vanessa turned back from the window.

"What?"

"You keep looking at the gate." Adrian hadn't moved from his chair.

"Is someone coming?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You've checked that window three times in the last two minutes."

Maria shifted Oliver to her other arm and stood up slowly.

She walked to the far side of the room without a word, placing herself between the hallway and the baby.

It was a small movement.

Adrian noticed it.

Vanessa noticed it too.

"You think I called someone." Vanessa's voice had a new edge now — not fear exactly, but something close to it.

"You think I'm dangerous."

"I think you dropped my eight-month-old son from a second-floor balcony," Adrian said.

"So yes.

I think you're dangerous."

"That was not what it looked like."

"I watched the footage, Vanessa.

I watched your hands open."

"I panicked.

He was crying and I was trying to — I lost my grip—"

"You said 'you should have kept your mouth shut' before you let go." Adrian's voice didn't rise.

It didn't need to.

"Those were your exact words.

Maria heard them.

The camera recorded them.

So please stop telling me what it looked like."

Vanessa pressed her lips together.

The front gate intercom buzzed.

Everyone in the room went still.

Adrian looked at the security panel on the wall.

The small screen showed a black car at the gate.

A man in the driver's seat.

Another in the passenger seat.

He didn't recognize either of them.

"Who is that?"

Vanessa said nothing.

"Vanessa.

Who is at my gate?"

"I don't know."

"Your phone has buzzed four times in the last twenty minutes and you haven't answered once.

Someone is at my gate at nine o'clock at night and you don't know who it is." He stood.

"Try again."

She looked at the screen.

Something moved across her face — a calculation, quick and cold.

Then she seemed to make a decision.

"They work for Richard."

"Holt sent people to my house."

"He knows you found the drive.

Someone must have—" She stopped.

"Someone must have told him." Adrian looked at her phone, still in her pocket.

"You texted him.

When you silenced the call.

You texted him from the same motion."

"Adrian, listen to me.

These men are not here to hurt anyone.

Richard just wants the drive.

You give him the drive, this ends tonight.

No lawyers.

No police.

No ugly court case that destroys your company's share price for the second time.

You give him the drive and everyone walks away."

"Everyone walks away," Adrian repeated.

"Yes."

"Including the people responsible for what happened to my wife."

Vanessa didn't answer.

"That's what I thought." He pressed the intercom button.

"This is private property.

You have thirty seconds to leave before I call the police."

A voice came through the speaker — male, flat, unhurried.

"Mr.

Cole.

We're not here to cause trouble.

We just need a brief conversation."

"You're having it.

Leave."

"Mr.

Cole, the documents on that drive were obtained illegally.

They are the property of Crestline Advisory Group.

Possession of stolen corporate documents carries significant legal exposure.

We're offering you a clean resolution."

"Twenty seconds."

A pause.

"Mr.

Cole—"

"Fifteen."

The line went quiet.

On the screen, the man in the passenger seat lifted a phone to his ear.

Adrian turned to Vanessa.

"Is there anyone else coming?"

"No."

"Is that the truth?"

She met his eyes.

For the first time that evening, she looked genuinely tired.

"Yes.

That's the truth."

"Then here is what's going to happen." He picked up his own phone.

"I'm calling the police.

My lawyer is already on his way.

Those men at my gate are going to be very unhappy in about ten minutes, and there is nothing you can say or offer me that changes that." He looked at her steadily.

"You had one chance to tell me the truth tonight.

You spent it lying.

That chance is gone."

On the security screen, the black car reversed slowly away from the gate.

They were leaving.

But Adrian knew — and from the look on Vanessa's face, she knew too — that Richard Holt did not send men to a gate and then simply drive away.

He was regrouping.

And somewhere in those seven folders, there was still something Adrian hadn't read yet.