The first hint that something was wrong came not from a headline but from a silence.
For three straight mornings, the markets didn't move the way they should have.
The numbers were too steady, the calm too smooth — the kind that comes before a storm.
By the fourth morning, the storm arrived.
> HATTAWAY VISION ACCUSED OF FRAUDULENT REPORTING — INTERNAL SOURCE LEAKS DATA.
The words blazed across every screen in the office. Phones rang, messages exploded, analysts called for statements.
Lana ran in first, pale and breathless. "It's all over the wires. They're saying our quarterly numbers are fake. That we inflated projections."
"That's impossible," I said sharply. "We've got proof of every deal."
"Proof isn't the problem," Evelyn murmured, sliding her tablet across the table. "The files have been altered. Someone inside doctored them, then leaked them to the press."
For a moment, everything in me went still — a cold, measured kind of stillness I hadn't felt since the day James betrayed me.
"Who had access?" I asked quietly.
Evelyn's voice trembled. "Everyone at senior level… including Victor Dane."
Victor.
The man who had slithered back into our orbit months ago, claiming he wanted to invest, promising growth, pretending loyalty.
I should have known a snake doesn't change its fangs.
"Lock him out of the system," I ordered. "Now."
---
By noon, the media camped outside the building. Reporters shouted my name, flashbulbs bursting like gunfire.
Inside, I stood before my board — calm, immaculate, dangerous.
"Someone thinks they can drag my name through mud again," I began, voice steady. "They forgot that I learned to rise from ashes."
Wallace sat beside me, jaw tight, eyes dark. He hadn't said much since the story broke. I could feel the weight of his fury like thunder waiting to strike.
When the meeting ended, he pulled me aside.
"We'll fix this," he said. "I've called in a forensic team. We'll trace every byte of that leak."
I nodded, though something in his tone made me pause.
"You think it's Victor?"
His gaze flickered. "I think it's bigger than him."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning," he said slowly, "Victor doesn't move unless someone pays him to."
My pulse spiked. "James."
Wallace didn't answer, but the look in his eyes said everything.
---
That night, I went home and found an envelope waiting on my desk — no address, no seal, just my name scrawled across it.
Inside: a single photo.
Wallace. In a restaurant. Shaking hands with Victor Dane.
The caption, handwritten in red ink:
> Still trust your partner, Diana?
My breath caught. For a heartbeat, the old fear crept in — the familiar ache of betrayal, the whisper that said, You're being fooled again.
But then logic returned. I stared at the photo again — at the timestamp, at the angle, at the smugness behind it.
This wasn't truth. It was theatre. A trap.
When Wallace arrived minutes later, I showed him the picture. "Explain."
He exhaled, ran a hand through his hair. "He cornered me last week. Said he wanted to 'settle.' I met him once — public place, witnesses — just to see what game he was playing. I didn't tell you because I didn't want to add fuel until I had proof."
I studied him, searching his face for cracks.
There were none — just exhaustion, honesty, and anger aimed at the right enemies.
"I should've told you sooner," he said quietly.
"You should have," I replied, voice soft but firm. "No more secrets, Wallace. Not between us."
He stepped closer, eyes steady. "No more secrets."
---
The next day, Evelyn burst into my office, trembling with adrenaline. "We found it! The leak!"
Lana followed, holding a flash drive like it was the Holy Grail. "It came from Victor's system, but it was routed through one of our own."
"Who?" I demanded.
She hesitated. "Mia."
I felt the ground shift beneath me.
Mia — my quiet analyst, my friend, the girl who once said I saved her career.
"She was offered money," Evelyn said softly. "And protection. Victor promised her a new job overseas if she buried the code trails. She panicked when the story broke. She's waiting in the conference room."
I walked there slowly, heart heavy.
Mia sat at the far end, tears streaking her face.
"Why?" I asked, not as a CEO but as a woman who'd already tasted betrayal.
"I—I thought he could ruin me if I didn't help," she stammered. "He said you'd replace me anyway. I was scared."
I stared at her for a long moment, then said, "Fear makes traitors of good people, Mia. But redemption comes through courage. Help me fix what you broke."
She nodded, sobbing. "I will."
---
Within forty-eight hours, we had the full picture.
Victor had orchestrated the leak, James had financed it, and Mia had unknowingly helped them cover their tracks.
We released a statement with evidence — clean, sharp, irrefutable.
The markets bounced back. The press flipped.
Headlines shifted from "Hattaway Vision Scandal" to "Hattaway Exposes Corporate Sabotage."
I stood on the balcony again that night, watching the city glow like a living thing.
Wallace joined me, wrapping his jacket over my shoulders.
"You could've burned them publicly," he said. "But you didn't."
"I don't need revenge headlines," I replied. "Just peace."
He smiled. "You're remarkable, you know that?"
"Remind me again tomorrow," I said softly.
And for the first time in days, I let myself breathe.
But deep down, I knew this war wasn't over.
Victor Dane had vanished.
James Hudson had gone silent.
And silence, I'd learned, always meant one thing:
The next strike was coming.
