Chapter 39
* * *
Damien
I’d never felt more useless in my life.
Tears.
Guilt.
Emma’s shame was so sharp it felt like the air itself was cracking open around us.
And the voices—those vicious, relentless voices she fought until her strength burned out and exhaustion finally dragged her under, they echoed in my mind as well.
But I had one thing she didn’t.
Certainty.
This would go away because I would make it so. Whatever it took.
Phil was already involved.
My fixer.
My shadow.
The man whose methods Emma could never discover.
I’d only needed him a handful of times over the years—but when things required solutions without mercy, he was unmatched. And now, with Emma fragile and trembling in ways she never should have been, I didn’t need morality.
I needed results.
This morning I’d used the power she’d placed in my hands: the weight of a dominant’s command.
The first real one I’d ever given her.
Not to control her. But to protect the fragile edges of her sanity from shattering under one more blow.
I demanded she stay home today. Recoup. She wasn’t ready for the world outside that bedroom.
And to my surprise, she’d agreed. Teary-eyed and swollen-faced with a tiny nod of her head.
The image followed me as I slid behind the steering wheel. The engine rumbled to life just as I hit the call button.
“Damien,” Phil answered—no warmth, no ceremony.
“What did you find?”
“I mapped the relay chain,” he said. “Tracked the packet back through every endpoint.”
My fingers pressed harder against the wheel. “And?”
A shuffle of paper.
“It originated from the home network of Gregory Davidson. One of Elion’s investors.”
Of course.
“I expected as much,” I muttered. “Next?”
Another pause.
“There are a couple of routes,” he explained. “Depends how clean you want the ending.”
“Whatever protects Emma and keeps Elion intact.”
Phil inhaled, pages shifting. “All right. Here’s what I can do.”
I stayed silent, my thumb gliding across the leather of the wheel, eyes fixed on the slow pulse of morning traffic.
“First option,” Phil said. “We frame Davidson.”
“We don’t touch the numbers,” he added quickly. “No one rewrites her work. We just alter the story of who sent it.”
“How airtight?”
“Bulletproof. System logs showing he accessed the files earlier than anyone else. IP trails routed to his home network. And the narrative? Davidson intercepted an early audit draft from Elion, manipulated the packet, then forwarded the altered version to the investors. And the kicker—he becomes the leak. The origin point. And only Emma would know the numbers were real.”
“And the second option?”
“That’s the neutralization.” Phil’s tone didn’t shift. “Davidson’s already getting sloppy. He’s got conflicts of interest stacked to the ceiling. I can surface one—just enough to show a lapse of integrity unrelated to Elion.”
I could see it clearly: Davidson imploding. Falkirk redirecting blame. Emma cleared before anyone could lay a hand on her reputation.
“With both options together?” Phil added lightly. “He’s done. Blacklisted everywhere.”
Exactly what the fucker deserved.
“How long?”
“Two weeks.”
My tone lowered—calm and lethal. “Do it.”
“Yes, sir.”
The line died.
The drive to Falkirk blurred—functional, measured, every thought fixed on the pressure points Phil and I would trigger until Davidson collapsed under his own corruption. By the time the tower came into view, the decision had crystallized.
Reporters hit the car in a wave as soon as I pulled to the entrance—cameras erupting in white-hot bursts, microphones slamming toward glass, questions piling over one another.
“Mr. Holt!”
“Is Elion collapsing?”
“Was the leak intentional?”
“Will Falkirk end the partnership?”
And then—
“Has Ms. Sinclair lost control of her company?”
That one snapped clean through me.
“Falkirk stands with Elion. We are aligned and addressing the breach together,” I commented, buttoning my jacket and passing my keys off to the valet.
“Mr. Holt! When will Elion be making a statement?” someone called, stopping me in my tracks.
Emma wasn’t ready. Throwing her into this would break what little stability she had.
Phil’s timeline bounced in my skull.
“Elion is conducting an internal review,” I announced. “Expect a statement by the end of next week once information is verified.”
Two weeks.
Two weeks to bury Davidson.
Two weeks to stabilize Emma.
Two weeks before the narrative flipped.
And with that, I walked inside, the static of cameras fading.
Falkirk’s lobby was quieter but no calmer—whispers threading through the air.
“Did you see the news?”
“What’s Falkirk going to do now?”
“We have to cut ties. Elion’s done.”
I ignored the noise, offered the polite smile expected of me.
Dread settled in me as I saw Richard Farnsworth waiting for me by the elevator.
“Damien,” he said, steady as stone. “Board’s waiting upstairs.”
“I’ll be there.”
Anger pressed in, but I kept my expression smooth as I stepped into the elevator, heading for the executive floor.
The moment the doors opened, tense arguments spilled out—already forming. When the door to the conference room swung wide, everyone was already in place. I took my seat at the head of the table.
Richard Farnsworth sat to my left, finishing his coffee, unfazed by catastrophe.
I’d brought him on during Falkirk’s first major expansion—when most seasoned executives dismissed me as too young to be taken seriously.
We didn’t agree on everything, but he never buckled, and he’d backed my leadership from day one.
To my right sat Alicia Morgan—strategist from the Orlean merger.
Sharp-minded, impossible to intimidate, with a memory that rivaled any server we owned.
Past her was Linda Cavanaugh, EVP, whose calm efficiency could reorganize half a division in a week.
They didn’t always vote my way, but when it came to decisions that shaped Falkirk’s future, we usually aligned.
Across from us sat Nathan Bell and his curated disaster of loyalists.
Gerald Ashford—former general counsel, always imagining lawsuits lurking in every corner. He’d been the one to call my last attempt to remove Nathan “premature.”
Next to him, Scott Lang—CFO from the Tolren merger, tapping his pen in a nervous rhythm. He wasn’t Nathan’s ally by conviction, just proximity. Too easily swayed. Too eager to be on the side that looked safest.
Farther down were Nathan’s dependable drinking partners.
Paul Shore—Wexford’s PE rep, every sentence shaped like a pitch, blinking so infrequently it unsettled half the room.
And finally, James Richter—Kingspath holdover, sunburned year-round, loud enough to fill a room even when he wasn’t talking.
Drinking buddies, vacation partners, family cookouts.
Nathan’s oldest ally.
Four votes solidly behind Nathan.
A powder keg.
And Nathan was sitting at its center.
Paul Shore leaned back. “You know why we’re here, Damien.”
The accusation hit the table before I’d even settled.
I smiled. “I have an idea.”
“Elion was your idea,” Ashford said, caterpillar eyebrows pinched into a frown. “And look at the mess we’re in now.”
“The partnership was my idea,” I corrected calmly.
“because Elion’s technology streamlines three of our highest-cost divisions.
Predictive processing, adaptive architecture—reducing overhead by twelve percent and boosting output by nearly twenty.
And the beta suggests even higher. Positioning Falkirk a full fiscal quarter ahead of Torlen and Kingsp—”
“This isn’t about tech,” Nathan cut in. “It’s about transparency and Emma—”
“Ms. Sinclair,” I bit out.
Her name on his tongue had irritated me before. But now that she was mine? Truly mine. It sparked something far uglier.
Silence tightened around the table, Nathan’s lips curving into a grin.
I sat forward slowly, letting the tension sit heavy before I sliced through it.
“You’re all assuming that the numbers in that leak were complete, current, or presented in their proper context.”
Conversation died as heads lifted.
Even Nathan’s smirk flickered.
“Elion’s audit packet may have been a working file,” I said. “Not finalized. Not verified. And the version that surfaced this morning? None of us can confirm the legitimacy via news broadcast.”
A ripple of discomfort passed through the group.
Richter frowned.
Lang’s pen stilled.
Shore blinked for the first time in ten minutes.
“What you saw was a snapshot. A selective slice—missing projections, missing context, missing the financial trajectory Falkirk’s been reviewing, and verifying,” I added.
“internally for weeks. So before any of you condemn Elion—or Ms. Sinclair—we need to allow them to find the leak and seal it. Then we can move forward with specifics.”
That landed like a stone dropped onto the table.
Alicia sat back, the left side of her mouth tilting up instead of down.
Linda Cavanaugh’s foot stopped twitching beneath the table.
Even Ashford, eternally risk-averse, straightened with sudden alertness.
Nathan’s facade frayed. “This is all speculation,” he snapped.
I turned my head just enough to level a glare at him.
“No. It’s the first logical conclusion anyone here has offered this morning.
Elion deserves time to complete their internal review,” I continued.
“Just as much as Falkirk deserves verified information before we issue another statement to the press.”
“How long do you propose we wait?” Shore asked, scribbling god knew what on a legal pad.
“Not long. Elion will provide a vetted packet—context, updated projections, corrected errors—before any public announcement, with a two-week deadline.”
A new audit—my version—precise and impressive enough to silence every critic in the room.
Shore opened his mouth again, but Scott Lang beat him to it.
“I agree,” he said. “We can’t afford a snap judgment. Elion’s technology in Falkirk’s hands could be substantial.”
Alicia nodded first.
Richard followed.
Then Linda.
Richter exhaled—the telltale, reluctant sound of a man shifting his weight onto the only stable ground left. “Fine,” he said. “End of next week. No later.”
Nathan tried to speak again, but the tide had already moved past him.
His supporters exchanged uncertain looks—Lang fiddling with his pen, Shore clearing his throat, Richter’s bravado thinning at the edges.
Agreement rippled across the table—tight-lipped, cautious, but real.
I folded my hands in front of me, fighting to keep my composure seamless.
By the end of next week, the leak would be a footnote. Davidson would be radioactive.
And Emma would walk into the Elion/Falkirk partnership signing with her reputation intact—and a truth no one would dare weaponize again.
“We’re done here,” I announced, pushing back my chair. Phone already in hand, mind already on Emma, I walked out and left them to choke on the silence.