They reconvened in Eleanora’s study. The mood was no longer cautiously optimistic. It was grim, cold, and absolute.
Caspian placed a single, encrypted hard drive on the polished desk. The small black rectangle seemed to absorb the light in the room.
He didn’t need notes. The facts were burned into his memory. “She used a consulting firm as a front to funnel money from The Finch Foundation through three shell corporations,” he began, his voice devoid of emotion. “The final destination was a holding company called IF Holdings.”
He detailed the IP address from her penthouse, the offshore account in the Caymans. He saved the worst for last.
“She used the stolen money for personal luxuries. Including a vintage Aston Martin she claimed was a final gift from her dead father.”
Zara let out a soft, choked sound of disgust. “The patients… the people who donated that money, thinking they were helping someone…”
Eleanora, however, was icily calm. She reached out and tapped the hard drive with a single, manicured finger. The sound was a sharp crack in the quiet room.
“This,” she said, her voice like chips of ice, “is not a sword. This is a guillotine.”
The two pieces of their strategy clicked into place. They finally saw the whole picture.
“Maria’s affidavit provides the heart of the story,” Caspian realized aloud. “The human cost. The emotional betrayal of the medical lie.”
“And this drive provides the proof of the crime,” Eleanora finished. “One attacks her character. The other attacks her liberty. Together, they are insurmountable.”
The path forward was clear. There would be no quiet leaks. No single journalist. This required something else.
“We won’t just release this,” Eleanora said, her eyes glinting with a strategist’s fire. “We will orchestrate a media cataclysm. A full-scale, public demolition. And we will time it for maximum impact. Maximum humiliation.”
She looked at Caspian, her expression unyielding.
“Our stage will be the live national finale of `Starlight Serenade`.”
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