CHAPTER 030: THE VARIABLE THEY DIDN'T PREDICT
"Phase Two requires both of us."
I say it again in the morning because I need to hear it in daylight.
Need to know how it sounds when I'm not exhausted and sitting in a dark monitoring room at three in the morning.
"They engineered proximity," I continue. "The contract marriage. The shared threat. Even the timing of when Dominic found me again."
Dominic sets his coffee down slowly.
"You think the meeting at your office was staged."
"I think the conditions that made it inevitable were staged," I correct.
I turn the laptop toward him, pulling up the timeline I've been building since four in the morning.
"Julian's debt being acquired by Voss Capital," I say. "The partnership request routed through three intermediary firms. The pressure campaign against Morriston." I tap the screen lightly. "Every path eventually narrowed to one outcome."
Dominic studies the timeline carefully.
"You walking into my building," I say quietly.
