I found the second set of books on a Thursday.

Not the Cayman files — something else. Buried in the server archive under a client folder that shouldn't have had any financial records attached, only legal documentation. I found it because I followed a misfiled document through three layers of incorrectly tagged records, which is the kind of thing you do when you've been an accountant long enough to know that misfiled documents are sometimes accidents and sometimes not.

This was not an accident.

The second set was clean where the first set was dirty. It showed the firm's actual financials — the real numbers, unaltered. And what the real numbers showed was: Thorne Capital was profitable. Genuinely profitable. The kind of profitable that didn't need the Cayman structure at all.

Which meant the laundering wasn't covering losses.

It was profit-generating in its own right.

Someone was running a parallel operation through Thorne Capital's infrastructure and skimming the proceeds.

I was still processing this when the door opened.

Maxim stood in the doorway.

He looked at the screen.

His expression was unreadable for three full seconds.

Then he came in, closed the door, and looked at what I was looking at.

"How did you find that?" he said.

"Misfiled document," I said. "Three redirects back."

"Who showed you that folder?"

"No one," I said. "I followed the trail."

He looked at the numbers on the screen.

"You see it," I said.

"Yes."

"The firm is profitable without the scheme," I said. "Which means Croft isn't covering losses. He's running a separate business."

"Yes," he said.

"Through your infrastructure."

"Yes."

I looked at him.

"Mr. Thorne," I said. "I want to ask you something directly."

"Ask."

"Did you know about this before six months ago?"

He held my gaze.

"No," he said.

"That's not what the second set suggests."

"The second set shows what I built," he said. "Not what was built into it."

"The same infrastructure."

"My name is on this company," he said. "My infrastructure. My reputation. My family's money built the original fund." He said it with a flatness that was something more than professional. "If you think I would allow someone to use what I built for this—"

"I don't know what you'd allow," I said. "I've known you for ten days."

He was quiet for a moment.

Then he said — very flat, very even:

"The second set is evidence. Croft maintains it as leverage. If I move against him through official channels, it disappears and the first set — the dirty one, with my firm's name on every transaction — becomes the only record."

I sat with that.

"He has you," I said.

"He thinks he does," he said.

"Doesn't he?"

He looked at the screen.

"He didn't account for you," he said.

The air in the office had shifted. I felt it — the specific weight of information that couldn't be unfound.

"Iris," he said.

First name. He'd been Mr. Thorne and Miss Vance for ten days.

"Yes," I said.

"What you found today doesn't leave this room."

"I know."

"And you need to be more careful," he said. "About what you access and when. Croft has an IT contact at the firm. If someone flags unusual access to archived folders—"

"I was careful," I said.

"You found something I've been looking for for six months," he said. "In ten days. Careful isn't enough."

I looked at him.

"Then what is?" I said.

He held my gaze for a moment.

Then he crossed to the desk.

He leaned over me and closed the archive window.

He was close. Closer than the professional distance of the last ten days. I could see the precise quality of his focus, the thing underneath the controlled surface.

"Trust me," he said.

"To do what?" I said.

"To handle what you've found," he said. "And to keep you out of Croft's line of sight while I do it."

I looked at the blank screen where the second set had been.

"And my father's debt?" I said.

"Stays cleared," he said. "Regardless of what happens next."

I held that.

"Why?" I said.

He straightened.

Looked at the window.

"Because the loan was bait," he said. "And you're not responsible for the trap that was set for you."

I opened my mouth.

He said, before I could: "I know. You have no reason to trust me."

"No," I said. "I don't."

He turned back.

"Then trust what you found," he said. "The numbers. The second set." He held my gaze. "You read numbers better than anyone I've hired. What do the numbers tell you?"

I thought about the second set.

The real books. The profitable firm. The man who'd built it from his family's money and whose name was on every page.

"That you didn't build this to launder money," I said.

"No," he said. "I didn't."

"That someone built the scheme into your infrastructure without your knowledge."

"Yes."

"And that you've been trying to dismantle it for six months without blowing up the firm in the process."

He looked at me.

"Yes," he said. "That's what the numbers tell you."

I looked at the blank screen.

"All right," I said.

"All right?" he said.

"All right," I said. "I'll trust the numbers."

He held my gaze for one more second.

Then he said: "Thank you, Iris."

He went back to his office.

I sat at the desk and thought about numbers and trust and the specific way he'd said my name — like it was a thing he'd decided to use and was committing to using.

*Iris.*

I thought about that more than I should have.

Then I pulled the next file.