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“Isabella.” He sounds breathless. “I just got a call from a friend at the DOJ. It’s happening.”

“What’s happening?”

“The Feds. They’ve issued a warrant for Sebastian. They’re pinning the entire King Corp breach on him, all of it.”

A text comes in. Five words that stop me in my tracks.

I didn’t send the email.

“Marcus, listen to me,” I say, picking up my phone to stare at the message, hope blossoming where darkness had been just moments ago. “Sebastian didn’t do it. The stuff the Feds are using? It’s been tampered with. Someone at King Corp is framing him to cover up a much bigger hole in their security.”

“It doesn’t matter, Isabella,” Marcus sighs. “They have a warrant. If he’s arrested now and you have any part in it, you’ll drag our firm down with him. We’ll be seen as accomplices, or at best, incompetent. You need to abandon this now.”

“I can stop it. I know how they did it. I have the proof.”

“Then do it fast, because if the Feds get him, that’s it. He’s done. And if you get dragged down with him, I have no choice but to let you go.”

I hang up, my mind racing through the possibilities.

A desperate idea flashes through my mind, something I doubt will work, but I have to try. I text Aaron, desperately hoping he’ll reply. It takes ten agonizing minutes of pacing, but he finally gets back to me with the information I need.

The Uber drops me off at a high-rise apartment building in Chelsea. Aaron is already there, waiting outside the glass doors, his expression grim.

“I don’t know if this is going to work,” he cautions me as he says hello to the doorman and hits the elevator button. “You’ve never met Jesse.”

I don’t know Aaron well, but I know him well enough to understand he’s trying to be gentle about his youngest brother.

The elevator doors slip open, and we step inside.

“I know, but we have to try.”

Aaron nods, then hits the button to his brother’s floor. He pounds on Jesse’s door until a man with disheveled hair and a faded band T-shirt with noise-canceling headphones around his neck opens the door.

“Aaron?” His eyes move from his brother to me, where they linger for a judgmental moment before flicking away dismissively. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I can see you’re doing something productive,” Aaron mumbles, pushing past his brother into a mess of a penthouse apartment. All the lights are on; a video game is paused on the enormous TV in the living room, and empty energy drink cans litter the top of the coffee table. “This is an emergency.”

“An emergency?” Jesse blinks. “Like something is on fire?”

“No, as in Sebastian is going to go to federal prison if we don’t do something—and fast.”

Jesse’s eyes widen. He and Aaron stare at each other before Jesse narrows his gaze and turns away. “I can’t help. I already told Seb I didn’t have anything to do with any of this.”

As Jesse turns to walk away, Aaron’s hand shoots out and grips his brother’s wrist. “What the fuck, Aaron?”

“This isn’t about you, not tonight.”

The two brothers stare at each other again. Aaron’s hand is still firmly wrapped around Jesse’s wrist.

“The Feds have a warrant,” I say, breaking the tense silence between them. “They’re going to arrest Sebastian in just a few hours. He nearly sent a document that framed two former employees for everything that’s happened. He still thinks protecting your father is the only way to save the company, and it’s going to put him in prison.”

My voice snaps the brothers out of their standoff, and Jesse looks at me for the first time since he dismissed me upon my arrival. “Who the fuck is this?” he asks, forcibly jerking his arm away from Aaron’s grip.

“Isabella Medina.”

“Oh yeah?” Interest flashes in Jesse’s eyes. “The PR exec Dad hired to make all this go away? Sounds like you did a great fucking job.” His snort of a laugh is nasty, his smirk bitter. “At least you did well fucking your way into Seb’s corner office.”

“Jesse!” Aaron’s voice is loud and startling, causing Jesse to flinch. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing? That you’re deflecting because you know you fucked up and you’ve never had to take responsibility a day in your fucking life?”