Chapter 65 Chapter 65

Chapter 65 Chapter 65
Nia made another mistake.

She knew it was a mistake the moment she did it. That was the particular quality of this one, not the uncertainty of the first time, when she had spent the better part of an afternoon talking herself into and out of it. 

This time she knew exactly what she was doing and she did it anyway. She opened a second restricted file on the system, read it quickly, closed it, and sat at her desk with her hands flat on the surface and did not move for three minutes.

It was a smaller file than the first. Less significant in terms of what it contained, but she had been in the system twice now and the second time was not the same as the first time and she understood that.

Temi knocked on her open door. "The legal team has a quick question about the October dates."

"Give me a minute," Nia said.

Temi looked at her face. She pulled the door gently closed without being asked.

Nia sat alone in her office.

She thought about the version of herself from a year ago. The one who had left Anthony's house with a bruised body and a determination that had felt clean and uncomplicated because she had not yet had to do anything complicated with it. 

That version of herself would not have done this, not the first time and not the second. She would not have known this kind of pressure existed.

She thought about when the line between surviving something and becoming something else had gotten so thin.

She did not have a clean answer to that. She opened her laptop. She went back to work. She did not open the building layout. 

She did not look at the system log. She put her head down and worked until the floor had emptied out around her and the cleaners had come and gone.

Anthony received the report at half past two in the afternoon.

He was at his desk going through the ball preparation brief his lawyer had submitted when his contact network sent through an alert. 

A second file access inside Cole Dominion Group. The same username as the first. This one was different in content, it related to a partnership negotiation Xavier had been keeping extremely private, the terms of which had not been shared even with most of the senior team.

He set the brief down. He sat forward.

He did not have the content of what she had read. His contact had not been inside the file. But knowing she had opened it and knowing what file it was gave him what he needed. If she had read it she had the terms. If she had the terms she had something Anthony could use.

He called her.

She answered after four rings. Her voice was steady. That was Nia, I she could be falling apart and her voice would still be steady. He had always found that quality in her both admirable and frustrating.

"You accessed the file," he said.

A pause. Not a long one. "What file."

"The partnership negotiation file. The one you opened forty minutes ago." He kept his voice even. Not threatening. Informational. "I know you opened it. I know you read it. I am not angry about it."

She said nothing.

"I am going to make you an offer," he said. "A clean one. You summarise what you read and you send the summary to me through the secured channel. In exchange I give you the photograph of your mother. The actual photograph, high resolution, clearly identifiable and I give you the full address where she can be found." He paused. "Not just the city. The street. The building and the clinic schedule."

She was still not speaking.

"I am giving you twenty-four hours," he said.

He ended the call.

He put the phone down and looked at the window. He had calibrated the offer carefully, not asking for information as a weapon but as a transaction. Something she had for something he had. Clean and equal on its surface.

He was also giving her the one thing she had been saying no to for months. Every previous version had required her to hand something to someone else. This version required her to hand something to him. Something she had already taken.

He thought about the version of her that had said no to the photograph when the price was wrong. He thought about the second file access she had just made.

He was not certain she would send the summary.

He was more certain than he had been about anything involving Nia in a long time.

Sophia called at eight that evening.

Nia was still at her desk. The floor was completely empty. She had been sitting in the same position for twenty minutes without moving.

"You missed dinner," Sophia said.

"I know. I am sorry."

"Are you still at the office?"

"Yes."

A pause. "What happened."

Nia looked at the screen in front of her. The cursor in the blank document she had opened and had not typed anything into. "I need to think through something," she said. "I will be home in an hour."

"Nia."

"I know." She closed the blank document. "I will tell you when I get there. Give me an hour."

She ended the call.

She sat for a long moment. She thought about the photograph. The full address. The clinic schedule. Everything she had been trying to find for months, handed to her in exchange for a summary of something she had already read. Anthony had calibrated it well. She could not argue that he had not.

She thought about Xavier.

She thought about sitting in his office and telling him the truth before he had to ask for it and what that had cost her and what it had been worth.

She picked up her bag. She turned off the lamp. She left the building.

On the bus home she looked at her phone three times without opening anything. The twenty-four hours was running. She had not decided yet. She told herself she had not decided yet.

She was not certain that was true.