The call came at six-fifteen the next morning.

Adrian was in the kitchen, still dressed from the night before, a cup of coffee going cold on the counter beside him.

Paul had left at two a.m.

Two detectives had arrived at midnight and taken statements.

Vanessa had been escorted to the station for further questioning — not arrested, Paul had explained carefully, but not free to leave either.

The house was quiet.

Maria had put Oliver down in his crib at midnight and had not slept.

She was sitting at the kitchen table when Adrian's phone rang.

He looked at the screen and picked up immediately.

"Yes."

Maria watched his face.

"When?" A pause.

"How?" Another pause, longer.

His jaw tightened.

"Don't let anyone touch that office until I get there."

He ended the call and stood very still for a moment.

"What happened?" Maria asked.

"Someone broke into my company's server room last night.

Between one and three a.m." He set the phone on the counter.

"They didn't take hardware.

They targeted one specific partition of the financial archive.

The partition that holds the original Cole Industries acquisition records from three years ago."

"The records from when Holt tried to take over the company."

"Yes." Adrian looked at her.

"The records that would show exactly how the takeover bid was structured.

Who was involved.

Who was paid." He picked up his coffee, looked at it, set it back down.

"If those records are corrupted or deleted, the financial case against Holt becomes significantly harder to build."

"But you have the documents on the drive."

"The drive shows payments and connections.

The server records show the full structure — the legal filings, the proxy agreements, the chain of authorization.

Without them, Holt's lawyers can argue the drive documents are fragments taken out of context." He paused.

"Which is exactly what they'll do."

Maria thought for a moment.

"Elena mentioned a name.

In the hospital.

I didn't understand it at the time." She looked up.

"She said — 'If anything happens to the records, find Thomas Reeves.'"

Adrian went very still.

"Thomas Reeves."

"You know him?"

"He was my head of corporate compliance three years ago.

He left the company six months after the takeover bid failed.

I always thought—" He stopped.

"I thought he left because the pressure had been too much.

The whole period was brutal.

A lot of people burned out."

"Elena didn't think he left voluntarily."

Adrian looked at her for a long moment.

"She never told me that."

"She was still building the case.

She didn't want to tell you anything until she was certain." Maria folded her hands on the table.

"She was afraid that if you confronted anyone too early, they'd cover their tracks."

"She was protecting the investigation."

"She was protecting you.

And Oliver." Maria's voice was steady.

"She knew that if she told you what she suspected, you would have gone straight at Holt.

And Holt would have seen it coming."

Adrian sat down across from her.

For a moment he looked exactly like what he was — a man who had been grieving for eighteen months while the people responsible for his grief had been sitting close enough to touch.

"Thomas Reeves," he said again.

"She said he kept copies.

Off-site.

She said he was frightened but he wasn't corrupt.

She said he was waiting for someone to ask."

Adrian picked up his phone.

"Then I'm going to ask."

He dialed.

It rang four times.

Then a cautious voice answered — older, careful, the voice of a man who had been waiting for a call he wasn't sure he wanted to receive.

"Mr.

Reeves," Adrian said.

"This is Adrian Cole.

I think it's time we talked."

A long silence.

Then: "I've been waiting two years for you to call me."

Adrian closed his eyes briefly.

When he opened them, something in his face had hardened into something useful — not rage, not grief, but focus.

Clear and cold and purposeful.

"Can you come today?"

"I can come right now," Thomas Reeves said.

"I never unpacked those files.

I always knew I'd need them."