CHAPTER 42: The Evidence

POV: Avalon Pierce

Avalon had been staring at his laptop for so long that the screen had gone blurry.

Twenty-three minutes had gone by. He knew because he’d checked his phone twice, hoping someone would call and give him an excuse to look away from the files spread across the screen like accusations. Bank transfers. Emails. Contracts. All was pointing to Patricia Wong, sent by someone who wouldn’t tell them their name.

Beside him, Selene shifted on the couch and her breath hitched—that small sound she made when pain caught her off guard. She was getting better at hiding it but not good enough, at least not from him.

“We can’t use this,” she said.

He looked over. She had her hand pressed against her side again, fingers spread over the bandages under her shirt. It has been three weeks since the shooting and some days she still looks like a strong wind might knock her over.

“What do you mean we can’t use it?”

“Think about it. Anonymous evidence? No chain of custody? Any lawyer worth their degree will shred this in thirty seconds.” She gestured at the laptop. “Diana will tell us the same thing.”

“We’re not taking this to court. We need leverage—”

“Against Patricia? She’ll deny everything, say it’s fake, and claim we manufactured it to get rid of her. Without knowing who sent these files or how they got them—” Selene stopped, wincing again as she tried to sit up straighter. “We’ve got nothing.”

Avalon closed the laptop harder than necessary.

“So what, we just ignore it? Pretend we didn’t get handed proof that Patricia’s been sabotaging us for months?”

“I didn’t say that.” Selene’s voice was patient. Too patient. The way she’d been talking to him lately when he got like this—frustrated and tired and one wrong word away from saying something he’d regret. “I’m saying we need to be smart about it.”

He stood up, needing to move; he started pacing, and the penthouse suddenly felt too small.

“Look at the detail though. Transaction dates down to the minute. Routing numbers. Email headers with IP addresses. This isn’t some amateur putting together conspiracy theories in their basement.”

“No.” Selene was watching him pace. “It's professional surveillance. Which means whoever sent this had access. Real access to Patricia’s bank accounts, her private email, legal documents she probably thought no one would ever see.”

Avalon stopped mid-stride. They looked at each other and he knew she was thinking the same thing he was.

“Inside knowledge,” he said slowly. “Someone who works for her. Or—”

“Or someone who’s been watching her as closely as she’s been watching us.”

His phone rang before either could say more. Diana’s name on the screen.

He answered. “We need you here. Now.”

“What happened? Is Selene okay?”

“Just come. And bring Margaret.”

He hung up and immediately felt guilty for the shortness but didn’t have the energy to call back and apologise. Everything felt like that lately—too sharp, too raw, like his skin had been filed down and every interaction scraped.

Forty-three minutes later—he’d checked again—they were all crowded around the dining table.

Diana had arrived with her laptop and that focused expression she got when she was about to tell them something they wouldn’t like. Margaret stood by the window, backlit by afternoon sun, arms crossed tight across her chest.

“This is damning,” Diana said without looking up from the screen. She’d been reading for five minutes straight. “If it’s real.”

“If?” Margaret turned sharply and Avalon saw real anger there which was rare for her. “Have you looked at the dates? Every attack on this company—every single one—there’s a payment to Patricia right before. The medical records leak? Two hundred thousand dollars two days earlier. The Vincent acquisition vote? She’s literally emailing Richard to thank him for the money.”

“Which is exactly what makes me suspicious.” Diana finally looked up. Her eyes were bloodshot. When was the last time she slept? “Nobody is this sloppy. Especially not Patricia. That woman colour-codes her calendar and alphabetises her spice rack. You think she’d leave a paper trail a first-year law student could follow?”

“Maybe she thought she was safe,” Selene said. She’d moved to one of the dining chairs but still sat too carefully, as everything hurt. “Maybe she thought Richard would win and none of this would ever come to light.”

“Or someone is setting her up,” Diana said.

The words dropped into the room like stones in still water and Avalon felt his stomach flip, he hadn’t let himself think that, didn’t want to.

“Are the files fake?” His voice came out rougher than intended.

“I don’t know.” Diana pushed her laptop away like she was tired of looking at it. “What I am saying is; someone really wants us to believe Patricia’s the traitor. Whether she is or not—that’s what we need to prove.”

“How long?” Avalon asked.

“How long for what?”

“Verification or confirmation that these accounts exist, these transactions happened and these emails are real.”

Diana rubbed her eyes. “Days or a week with the right forensic accountant.”

“We don’t have a week.” Avalon started pacing again, he couldn’t help it. Movement kept the panic at bay. “Patricia made her move today with that acquisition offer. She’s definitely not going to sit around and wait while we investigate.”

Margaret moved to the table and pulled out a chair. “Then we confront her, show her what we have and watch how she reacts.”

“And if she lawyers up immediately?” Diana asked. “Or refuses to say anything? What does that tell us?”

“That she’s guilty. Innocent people don’t hide.”

“That’s not how the world works, Margaret. You know that.”

They were all exhausted, and it showed in the sharp edges creeping into their voices.

Avalon forced himself to stop pacing. Sat down heavily. “What about tracing the email? Finding who sent this?”

Diana shook her head. “Routed through six different proxy servers across four countries. Every trail ends at a wall. Whoever did this knows exactly how to disappear.”

“Great.” Avalon heard the bitterness in his own voice. “So we have potentially fabricated evidence from a ghost source about someone who might be or not be innocent, and no way to verify anything before she makes her next move. This is fine. Everything’s fine.”

Under the table, Selene’s hand found his, her fingers were cold yet he laced his through hers and held on.

“We verify what we can,” Diana said, already pulling her laptop back. “I’ll get forensic accountants on the bank transfers tonight. See if those accounts actually exist, if the money trail is real. Margaret, do you still have connections on the board? Can you quietly ask around? See if anyone noticed Patricia acting strange?”

“I can try.” Margaret didn’t sound hopeful. “But if she’s been planning this for months then she must have been very careful.”

“Everyone makes mistakes eventually. We need to find one.”

After Diana and Margaret left, Avalon and Selene stayed at the table. The laptop sat between them, still showing those damning files. Evidence or lies. No way to know which without the time they didn’t have.

“I hate this,” Selene said quietly.

Avalon looked at her. “Which part?”

“Not knowing who to trust. Looking at everyone who says they want to help and wondering if they’re actually trying to destroy us.” She paused, and when she spoke again her voice was smaller. “You know what the worst part is? It’s not Marcus, Vincent, or my father. It’s this. The paranoia. Looking at people we’ve worked with for years and wondering if they’ve been lying to our faces the whole time.”

“I know,” he said instead of giving her reassurance he isn’t sure about. He pulled her chair closer so he could put an arm around her shoulders without jarring her wound.

They sat like that for a while when suddenly his phone rang.

Unknown number.

He answered on speaker. “Hello?”

The voice that came through was wrong, distorted and mechanical like someone speaking through a cheap voice modulator from a spy movie.

“Did you receive my files?”

“Yes, we did. Who are you?”

“I told you before. A friend.”

“Friends don’t hide behind voice scramblers.”

And then came a sound that might have been laughter if laughter could be run through a shredder

Selene leaned toward the phone. “Why help us at all?”

“Because Patricia Wong needs to be stopped and only you two are the ones with the power to do so.”

“The police have power,” Avalon said. “Why not take this to them?”

“Police need probable cause, warrants and evidence obtained through legal channels. They can’t touch Patricia yet—not with what they have. But you?” Another pause. “You can expose her, destroy her credibility and force her off the board before she destroys Pierce Holdings from the inside.”

“How did you gain access to her private files?” Avalon demanded. 

Silence stretched so long he thought they’d been disconnected.

Then: “Let’s just say I work for someone who has very good reasons to keep a close eye on Patricia Wong. Someone who wants her exposed before it’s too late.”

“Who?” Avalon pressed. “Give us something, a name, a reason to trust you.”

“Trust?” The distorted laugh again. “You don’t need to trust me. You need to use what I gave you. Confront Patricia,  force her hand and make her crack.”

Selene’s fingers tightened on Avalon’s arm. “Why now? Why the sudden urgency?”

“Because in three days, Patricia’s calling a board vote….and this time, she has the numbers to force you out completely.”