Page 75 of His Daughter

Two men from building security appeared at the conference room door. Caine stood and buttoned his jacket. His lawyers gathered their files.

Caine stopped at the door and turned. "I built that company with my hands, Declan. Forty years. It was dying, and I tried to save it, and the methods were — " He paused and shook his head. "You'll understand someday. When something you built starts bleeding, you'll do things you didn't think you were capable of."

He left. The door closed. The room held the silence like a caught breath.

Nolan hadn't moved. His hands were in his lap, his eyes on the table. Julian exhaled — long and slow — closed the folder, and pressed both palms flat against the surface.

Graham was already on his tablet, fingers moving. "I'll pull the review chain for every document Caine submitted. We can have a full audit trail by — "

"Thank you, Graham." I kept my voice even. "That'll be all for now."

He looked up. His glasses caught the light. Behind the lenses, his eyes met mine — steady, professional, giving nothing away. He nodded, stood, and left. The door closed behind him.

I turned to Nolan, then Julian. The three of us alone in the conference room. "I trust everyone in this room." I said it quietly, clearly. "What that man said changes nothing. He's a fraud trying to spread the blame."

Nolan nodded once. Julian exhaled again.

"But I'm going to find out how this got past us. Every document, email, and review in the chain." I pressed my knuckles against the table. "I want it traced."

I went to my office. Julian followed.

The security footage was already compiled. I'd asked building security to pull the Vanguard lobby CCTV two days ago — weeks of it, going back to the period just before Nolan walked into my office and said the four words that split my life. The files sat on my desktop, time-stamped and organized by date.

Julian pulled a chair beside mine. I opened the first file. The lobby materialized on screen. I scrubbed forward. Julian watched. Minutes became hours, became days, the timestamp rolling in the corner. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. People entered. People left. Nothing.

"There." Julian's hand landed on my arm. "Stop."

I stopped, rewound, and pressed play.

A woman walked through the lobby doors. Dark hair. Thin. Her coat was too large for her body, hanging from her shoulders like borrowed clothes. She moved slowly. She reached the reception desk, leaned in, and spoke to the woman behind the glass. Her hands gestured — urgent, pleading. She pointed upward. Toward the floors.

Kira.

The receptionist picked up the phone and made a call. Kira stood at the desk with her hands pressed flat against the marble counter. She was visibly pregnant; the coat couldn't hide it. Her belly pressed against the fabric when she turned.

Two minutes passed. Three. Then a figure emerged from the elevator bank. Gray suit. Wire-framed glasses.

Graham.

He approached Kira and touched her elbow. They moved together to a seating area away from the desk, two armchairs facing each other, partially shielded from the lobby traffic by a column.

Graham sat. Kira sat. He leaned forward, his mouth moving. She shook her head. He spoke again. She pressed both hands against her belly.

Graham reached into his jacket and produced an envelope. White. Slim. He placed it on the table between them. Kira stared at the envelope, then at Graham. He spoke again briefly; his expression unchanged.

Kira picked up the envelope and held it against her chest. She stood, her mouth moving one word, maybe two. Graham nodded. She turned and walked toward the lobby doors, her steps slower than before, heavier.

Graham watched her go. He straightened his cuffs, adjusted his glasses, and walked back to the elevator bank with the same precise stride and composed posture. The elevator doors opened. He stepped in. They closed.

The timestamp read 2:47 p.m.

I stopped the playback. The screen froze on the empty lobby. Julian was silent beside me, his hands flat on his thighs. He wasn't looking at the screen; he was looking at me.

"He paid her off." My voice came from somewhere I didn't recognize. "He intercepted the mother of my child in the lobby of my own building and paid her to disappear."

Julian didn't speak for a long time. When he did, his voice was stripped of its usual warmth. "The footage shows Graham paying Kira. It doesn't prove you didn't order it." He met my eyes. "Graham works for you. A lawyer could argue he was acting on your instructions. If this surfaces in the custody case, it looks like your organization suppressed the mother's attempt to contact you."

"Which makes the Vanguard look like a machine that discards people."