Chapter 15 - The Message on Chloe’s Desk
Chloe found the envelope beneath her keyboard.
Security footage showed no unauthorized entry. Her office door had remained locked throughout the night.
Someone with internal access had placed it there.
Inside was a photograph of Chloe standing beside Leah on the factory platform during the reopening ceremony.
A red line had been drawn across Leah’s face.
On the back were six words.
Your brother paid for your silence.
Chloe carried it directly to Daniel.
Within an hour, Vale Hart’s executive floor was sealed. Entry records were collected. Devices were inspected. Every employee with overnight access was interviewed.
The threat was not the only problem.
A confidential audit report had been sent from Chloe’s account to three newspapers and a rival manufacturer.
The report suggested Vale Hart had hidden millions in environmental liabilities.
It was false.
But it contained enough authentic information to look convincing.
By the afternoon, reporters waited outside the factory gates.
Board members demanded that Chloe be suspended.
“I did not send it,” Chloe told Leah.
“I know.”
“You cannot protect me because I protected you.”
“This is not protection. It is procedure.”
Leah placed Chloe on temporary paid leave while Daniel investigated.
The decision hurt them both, but Leah refused to create different rules for people she trusted.
As Chloe packed her office, she noticed something strange.
The forged report included a factory address that Vale Hart had stopped using five years earlier.
Only one department still used the address in its templates.
Outside legal counsel.
Victor Sloane had never truly left the company.
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His firm’s access had been canceled after Ryan’s arrest.
Someone had quietly restored it.
