By the time Val came back from Lucien's apartment, the sky had already started to dim. And even though she didn't get the full truth out of him—not the real version—she got enough for me to know something was wrong just by the way she walked in.

Lucien hadn't told her what he signed.

He hadn't told her who pushed it.

He hadn't even told her why.

But the way she described his reaction when she mentioned Benjamin Otavio?

The way she said his eyes dodged hers?

That told her everything she needed to know.

He was hiding something.

Something big.

Something he absolutely shouldn't have touched.

---

She barely slept that night.

And trust me, I noticed.

I always noticed.

She woke before sunrise, slipped out of the sheets like she was afraid her thoughts would spill onto me, and was halfway buttoning her blouse when I blinked awake and frowned at her.

"You're leaving already?" My voice came out rough, sleep-heavy.

She leaned down, pressed a soft kiss to my lips. "Just a packed day."

My hand found her waist, thumb brushing her blouse like I could somehow feel her stress through the fabric. "You sure?"

She nodded. "Mm. Go back to sleep."

I wanted to push. Ask. Make her stay just a few seconds more.

But Val always handled things in her own rhythm. And I respected the line between concern and pressure.

So I let her go.

By the time I got out of bed later, Aline already had breakfast waiting. Duchess was parked in the doorway, tail flicking with permanent judgment. And I headed off to Gray & Milton unaware of just how heavy Val's morning actually was.

The halls of Moreau Dynamics felt louder than usual that morning—sharp footsteps, clipped conversations, the hum of tension threading through every glass corridor. Val moved through it all with a stride that made Gianna practically jog to keep up.

She entered her office without slowing.

"I need everything Lucien has signed in the last three months," she said, setting her bag down.

Gianna froze.

As in—visibly, completely froze.

] "Everything… Mr.—? Ma'am, with all due respect, that crosses—"

"Gianna." Val didn't raise her voice. She simply refined it, sharpening it to a clean edge. "Pull them."

Normally unshakeable, Gianna looked rattled. "I have to remind you of the protocol. Executive Vice President documents aren't under Strategy's jurisdiction unless cleared through—"

"This is about Meridian," Val said quietly.

That ended the argument on the spot.

Gianna nodded quickly. "I'll pull whatever the system allows."

> "Good. Bring them here."

Gianna rushed out.

Val sat, pressing her fingers briefly to her temples. The names she'd heard last night hovered like static at the back of her mind.

Benjamin Otavio.

Vanguard Ark Investments.

On the surface, Vanguard Ark was spotless—polished, structured, transparent, almost too well-organized.

Too transparent.

Val didn't linger on the thought of impossible transparency. Not then. Not when she still had far too much to process and an entire office's worth of documents sitting between her and answers.

Gianna stood beside the desk after getting the files, waiting, hands clasped behind her back with the kind of professionalism that meant she was quietly bracing for impact.

"Ma'am," she asked carefully, "what exactly are we searching for?"

Val slid the "too transparent" file aside. "Anything signed by Lucien in the last three months."

Gianna nodded. "Right. And… specifically? Are we flagging inconsistencies, signatures, discrepancies, numbers—?"

"Names," Val said. "Two of them."

Gianna blinked. "Names?"

"Yes." Val opened another folder, scanning through routine expense approvals. "Benjamin Otavio. And Vanguard Ark Investments."

Gianna repeated it under her breath like she was committing it to muscle memory. "Right. Benjamin Otavio. Vanguard Ark Investments." She paused, lowered her voice. "Should I be worried?"

Val didn't answer immediately. She simply kept flipping. Page after page. Signatures, stamps, digital IDs, project codes that all looked clean on the surface.

After a moment she said, "No need to worry yet. We're just confirming something."

Gianna took a seat opposite her, already pulling the next set of files closer. "I'll check for the names. Do we start with Strategy-linked projects?"

"Start anywhere he could hide something," Val replied. "He's not subtle when he lies. He's subtle when he's scared."

Gianna's expression twisted. "That's… comforting."

They worked.

Folders opened. Folders closed. Tabs clicked through. Digital logs cross-referenced with physical copies. The kind of methodical, controlled searching that only two people who lived inside the company's architecture could perform.

Minutes passed. Then more.

And still nothing.

Gianna eventually exhaled and leaned back slightly. "Ma'am… forgive me asking this, but who is Benjamin Otavio?"

Val's hand stilled on a page. "Someone who shouldn't be anywhere near this company."

] "And Vanguard Ark Investments?"

> "Same."

Gianna hesitated before speaking again. "Then… we're hoping we don't find anything?"

Val's voice lowered. "We're hoping what I heard was wrong."

Gianna nodded and went back to searching.

File after file. Spreadsheet after spreadsheet. Financial routing sheets. Approval chains. Internal audits. Nothing tied to Benjamin Otavio. Nothing tied to Vanguard Ark. Nothing tied to anything close to them.

Exactly the kind of nothing that made Val's stomach tighten.

She closed another folder. "Nothing here either."

Gianna sighed into her hands. "I checked executive transfers, internal reallocations, cross-department memos, the Meridian shadow-budgeting logs—still nothing. The only thing even close is a consulting contract for a valuation firm, but that one looks perfectly standard. Routine mid-year assessment."

Val took the document from her, skimmed the first page, and set it aside. "Yes. That one is legitimate. Strategy signed off on the preliminary request two quarters ago."

"So it's not connected," Gianna confirmed.

"No." Val rubbed her temples lightly. "And neither are any of these."

Gianna hesitated before speaking again. "Ma'am… then what exactly are we expecting to find? If these Benjamin and… Vanguard names are supposed to show up somewhere, shouldn't there be at least—something?"

"There should be," Val said quietly.

Gianna lowered her voice. "Could the source be mistaken?"

Val's hand paused over a stack of documents — barely, but enough for a trained assistant to notice.

"No," she said. Calm. Certain. "He saw exactly what he saw."

Gianna nodded once, accepting the answer without pushing. After all, she didn't know who Val was referring to — only that Val trusted the information enough to turn the entire Strategy floor upside down for it.

And that alone said more than any explanation could.

Gianna began flipping again, slower now, her brows pulling together. "Ma'am… hold on."

Val looked up.

Gianna frowned as she pulled something halfway out of a folder buried under three others. "This file… I don't recognize it. And I definitely haven't seen it circulate through Strategy."

Val straightened. "What is it?"

"It's… something called 'Prometheus Acquisition Index.'"

Val blinked. "We've never worked on anything with that name."

"No, ma'am." Gianna turned the cover fully. "It's stamped under Strategic Evaluation, but the project code doesn't match any of ours. At all."

She slid it over.

Val opened it slowly, cautiously, almost as if the document itself might confirm something she wasn't ready for.

Inside were pages of preliminary assessments: risk models, acquisition pathways, projected ROI curves. The kind of document a department would only create in the earliest stages of evaluating an external company for investment or takeover.

Except Val had never assigned it.

Gianna had never seen it.

And Strategy didn't even use this formatting.

Val ran her finger down the first page. "Who authored this?"

Gianna pointed to the corner. "It just has a digital token. 'LX-09.' That's… him."

Lucien.

Val's jaw tightened.

She flipped to the second page.

Projected acquisition: unnamed.

Valuation bracket: mid-tier.

Redacted sections: multiple.

Gianna leaned in. "Is this even registered in our project ecosystem?"

> "Check."

Gianna grabbed her tablet, scanning the document's code. A soft beep sounded — then the screen flashed NO MATCH FOUND.

"…That's impossible," Gianna whispered.

Val kept flipping. If anything, the silence in the room grew heavier with each page.

The third page outlined a preliminary budget. Heavy allocations. Far more than Strategy would ever authorize without corporate board oversight. Numbers that suggested not just an acquisition — but a takeover.

One that hadn't passed through any official channels.

Gianna looked down at the document, then back at Val. "Ma'am… what exactly are we looking at?"

Val didn't answer immediately. She turned another page, tracing the structure of the proposals, the inconsistencies, the formatting differences that Lucien apparently tried — and failed — to hide.

Finally Gianna swallowed and asked again, softer: "Ma'am… is something wrong?"

Val shut the file slowly, controlled, like she was physically sealing the weight of the discovery before it crushed the room.

Then she smiled.

It wasn't a reassuring smile.

It wasn't even a polite one.

It was the kind of smile Val used when she had decided what she needed to do long before anyone else realized something was even happening.

"No," she said gently. "Nothing's wrong."

Gianna didn't believe her — nobody who knew Val would have — but Val didn't give her space to question it further.

"Thank you," she added, handing the document back carefully. "You've been extremely helpful."

Gianna accepted it uncertainly. "Should I… log this somewhere? Run a cross-check? Notify—"

"No," Val said quickly, her voice soft but firm enough to slice through the air. "Leave this one with me. And don't mention it to anyone."

Gianna straightened immediately. "Understood."

Val gave her one more smile

Gianna nodded, gathered the remaining files, and excused herself quietly.

The moment the door closed behind her, Val let out a long, slow breath she had been holding since the first page.

Because even though she told Gianna everything was fine…

She didn't believe that for a second.

And neither did I.

From the moment Trent said Lucien was involved, from the moment those two names surfaced — Benjamin Otavio and Vanguard Ark — I already knew something wasn't going to add up.

But the real problem wasn't the lack of evidence.

The real problem… was the file they weren't supposed to find.

Prometheus Acquisition Index.

A ghost project.

Hidden.

Unregistered.

Untraceable to any legitimate sector within Moreau Dynamics.

And knowing Val — knowing the way her mind works — the moment she saw that file?

She understood something Gianna didn't:

Whatever Lucien was doing had nothing to do with the names we were looking for.

It was something else.

Something bigger.

Something deeper.

Something he hadn't meant for anyone to find.

---

To be continued...

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