All Chapters of Silent Flame: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

 The decision came faster than expected. Less than twenty-four hours after the hearing, the judge issued her ruling. The internal investigation would continue without interruption. There was no injunction, no pause, and no public rebuke of Celeste or Evelyn.The statement was short, barely two pages, but it landed like a fault line splitting under Drake Industries.Evelyn read it twice in her office, the late afternoon light pooling across her desk. Relief brushed against her, but it was thin and fleeting. This was not an end. It was an opening, and Claudia would know it.Hana appeared in the doorway with a folder. “Board meeting is in twenty minutes,” she said. “It is already tense. Mason says some members are looking for a way out, others are sharpening their knives.”

The proof came two days later.Mason arrived at Evelyn’s office with a black flash drive, placing it on her desk like a dealer sliding the winning card across a table. “It is clean,” he said. “Pulled straight from the packet we seeded. No edits, no metadata scrub. The transmission chain is intact from Celeste’s secretary to Claudia’s counsel’s server.”Evelyn picked it up, feeling the weight of it even though it was almost nothing. “This is enough to prove the leak is deliberate?”“It is enough to make it impossible for Claudia to claim ignorance,” Mason said. “The secretary has been working for her by proxy.”Noah, leaning against the wall, folded his arms. “We should hit her with it now, b

The rain had cleared by morning, leaving the city washed and sharp. Evelyn arrived at the tower before sunrise, her mind still turning over the intercepted message from Zurich. She had not shown it to Celeste yet. Timing mattered, and timing was what Claudia was trying to seize.In the glass war room, Noah was already waiting with a fresh stack of reports. His expression told her more than the papers. “She is moving funds,” he said without preface.Evelyn took the chair across from him. “How much?”“Not an enormous sum, not enough to raise a headline,” Noah replied. “But the pattern is what matters. She is rerouting company money through a dormant subsidiary. The kind that looks like routine upkeep if you do not pay close attention. The destination account is tied to one of her Zur

Three mornings after the vote, the tower sighed as if someone had opened a window. Meetings started on time. Assistants smiled again without watching the door. The air of disaster that had hung over every corridor thinned. Evelyn felt it too, the small relief that follows a storm, but she refused to mistake it for calm. Storms have tails. Storms leave currents that can overturn a boat long after thunder has passed.Rumors arrived before lunch. Claudia had left Seoul on a night flight that took a northern arc and settled in Geneva before dawn. A driver from an old family office collected her at the terminal. She did not go to a hotel. She went to a townhouse near the lake that had once belonged to a banker who made a career out of caution. By noon, three names that did not like to appear in print were circling her. They had weathered other exiles and other returns. They understood the price of patience.

The delay came without warning. Evelyn was in the middle of reviewing campaign boards when Noah entered with a folded sheet in his hand. His expression alone told her that the words inside were not routine. He placed the paper on her desk and stood back, arms crossed, waiting for her to read.It was a formal notice from one of their most reliable European funds. The language was courteous, the sentences brief, but the meaning carried weight. They were postponing the signing of their agreement until they had “greater clarity on governance and leadership stability.”Evelyn read it twice, then set it down. Her throat felt tight, but her voice remained calm. “This is Claudia.”Noah nodded. “The whisper campaign is working. She has been feeding Zurich and Geneva with stories that Celeste’s he