I stopped breathing.
Internal Aegis emails.
Not personal mail.
Not stolen bank statements.
Company emails.
Only a handful of people had access to those early servers.
“Who touched the files?” I asked.
“We are tracing that now.”
“Agent Mercer.”
“Ms. Vale—”
“Who touched the files?”
Another pause.
This one longer.
Then he said, “One recurring access signature appears in the metadata. It predates Jamal. It predates Apex.”
My computer chimed.
A new email appeared.
No subject.
No sender name.
Just an encrypted attachment and one line of text in the preview.
I did not open it yet.
I stared at the words.
You finally found the decoy.
Agent Mercer was still talking, but his voice sounded far away.
“Ms. Vale? Are you there?”
I clicked the email.
The attachment name loaded.
CASSIDY_ORIGIN_FILE_FINAL.zip
My office door opened behind me.
I had locked it.
In the reflection of the window, I saw a man step inside wearing an Aegis security badge.
Not a stranger.
Not Jamal.
Not my father.
My chief operating officer, Nathan Cole.
The man who helped me build Aegis from nothing.
The man who had access to everything.
He closed the door softly and held up his phone.
On his screen was a live call.
Agent Mercer’s voice came from both my phone and his.
Nathan smiled.
“Cassidy,” he said gently, “hang up.”
I looked at the encrypted file on my screen.
Then at the gun in his hand.
And for the first time that day, I understood the courtroom had never been the trap.
It had been the fir distraction.
