Back at their hotel, Camellia was scanning old Phoenix network logs when she noticed a delay ping. A two-second lag between an internal update and Ethan’s reaction timestamp.

That shouldn’t have been possible — unless someone was feeding him real-time updates from inside Phoenix.

She reran the server data.

One IP — masked but oddly familiar — kept appearing at odd times: just before major media breaks, days before Ash Index updates.

It was coming from a private relay… inside Geneva HQ.

Later that evening, Sophie walked into the Crawford conference room.

Ethan stood at the far end, alone.

No lawyers. No partners.

Just him.

She sat across from him...