The alert came at 2:07 AM.
I was already awake. I'd been sitting at my kitchen table with cold coffee and my laptop, which is where I'd been sleeping most nights since the gala. When the notification hit, I set down my mug very carefully.
Leilany's credentials. Nexora's highest-clearance database. Mass access event in progress.
I pulled up the live monitor feed and watched.
She was systematic. I'll give her that. She moved through the directory structure the way someone does when they've rehearsed it—no wasted clicks, no hesitation. One by one, she was wiping the files. The algorithm packages I'd spent two years building. The transfer logs that would have traced every copy she'd sent to an offshore IP address I'd already flagged. The access records that put her in those servers at hours she was supposed to be asleep.
My phone was in my hand. I could have called Raymond right then.
I didn't.
I made more coffee. I sat back down. I watched.
For forty-seven minutes, I let her think she was winning.
At 2:54 AM, I called Raymond Holt.
He picked up on the second ring, voice rough with sleep. 'Emory?'
'She's wiping the servers,' I said. 'Leilany. Right now. You should pull up the security dashboard.'
A pause. Then the sound of him moving, a chair scraping. 'What am I looking at?'
'Destruction of evidence. But Raymond—' I paused, just for a beat. 'It doesn't matter. I mirrored everything to a secure cloud backup. Three months ago. Every file she's touching right now? I still have it. Timestamped and intact.'
The silence on his end lasted a long time.
'You've had this,' he said slowly. 'For three months.'
'I noticed the anomalous logins in August,' I said. 'I wanted to be sure before I said anything.'
Another silence.
'Call the police,' I said. 'I'll send you everything in the morning.'
I hung up. I finished my coffee. I finally went to bed.
---
I was at my desk by seven.
The police arrived at nine forty-five. Two officers, plain clothes, and a woman from the cybercrime unit who shook my hand and said my documentation was thorough. That was the word she used. Thorough.
Leilany arrived at ten, in her usual blazer, with her usual coffee. She smiled at the receptionist. She pulled out her badge to badge through the security door.
It didn't work.
I watched from my office window as they met her in the lobby. I watched her face go through four different expressions in about three seconds—confusion, then performance, then something that tried to be outrage and landed closer to fear. I watched her put her hands behind her back.
The junior developers in the bullpen went very still.
She walked past the glass wall of my office on the way to the elevator. I don't know if she looked for me. I looked at my screen.
When the elevator doors closed, I picked up my phone and called my attorney.
---
His name is Garrett Fenn. I've had him on retainer for two years. I've never needed him for anything personal before.
'I'm filing for divorce,' I said. 'And I need you to move fast, because I think my husband is about to do something stupid.'
Garrett is good at his job, which means he did not ask me how I was feeling. 'Tell me what you have.'
I told him. All of it.
---
Spencer moved faster than I expected.
Three days later, Garrett called me with the news. Spencer had retained an attorney. Not just any attorney—an aggressive one, the kind whose name I recognized from a case that had made the business pages two years ago. And he'd funded it by liquidating $47,000 from my personal investment portfolio. My account. My name. Without a single conversation.
The motion was already filed.
I read it at my desk. My expression didn't move.
The motion claimed I had fabricated the hotel receipts. That I had planted the server breach evidence myself—out of romantic jealousy, the filing said. That the real corporate thief was Emory Ward, who had orchestrated a campaign to frame an innocent employee.
I set my phone face-down on the desk.
Then it rang.
Spencer's name on the screen.
I picked up.
'Em.' His voice was steady. Careful. The voice he used when he was sure he was the reasonable one. 'I'm just trying to make sure the truth comes out. You've been under so much stress lately. I think—I think maybe you're not seeing things clearly.'
I sat very still.
He kept talking. Something about the pressure I'd been under. Something about how Leilany was a good person who didn't deserve this. Something about how he still cared about me.
I looked at the motion on my screen.
I thought about the $47,000.
I thought about the text message. *She's at work again. Come over.*
I thought about eleven months of nights I stayed late, and a husband who spent them somewhere else.
Something inside me went quiet. Not like a door slamming. More like a lock turning. A small, final click.
I hung up.
I opened the folder labeled CASE.
I got back to work.
