Chapter 5 - Project Northstar
Corporate security collected every phone.
Nobody objected.
Nobody wanted to be the person who objected.
Malcolm's device was the seventh examined.
It had issued no deletion command.
Vanessa's hadn't either.
Neither had Richard's.
The request came from a phone belonging to Edward Pike, the deputy general counsel.
Edward turned white.
“I didn't do that.”
Malcolm looked at him.
“Of course you didn't.”
The sympathy sounded rehearsed.
Edward's phone had been compromised through a management profile installed three weeks earlier.
Ethan inspected the technical summary.
“This is layered.”
Vanessa stood beside him in the security lab.
“So whoever is responsible wanted us to accuse Edward?”
“Maybe.”
“You say maybe a lot.”
“Certainty is expensive.”
She looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means every time somebody wants an immediate answer, they usually pay for it later.”
She knew he was talking about more than cybersecurity.
“I apologized.”
“No.”
Her face tightened.
“I said I was wrong.”
“You said it in front of the board.”
“That's an apology.”
“An apology has a person in it.”
Ethan returned to the monitor.
Vanessa stared at him.
She was not accustomed to employees correcting her emotional vocabulary.
“What would satisfy you?”
He looked at her.
“Why do you think this is a transaction?”
She had no response.
Claire entered with a flash drive.
“Malcolm authorized Northstar access.”
Vanessa turned.
“He decrypted it?”
“No. The board compelled production through general counsel. His outside counsel advised compliance.”
They gathered in Richard's private office.
Project Northstar opened on the screen.
The document was not about routine restructuring.
It modeled a scenario in which Harrington Global's manufacturing division suffered “sustained systems failure,” followed by client departures, declining valuation and emergency asset sales.
The proposed buyer was Kestrel Meridian Capital.
Richard read silently.
Vanessa watched his hands.
He was motionless except for one thumb rubbing the edge of his watch.
A habit he had when furious.
“Malcolm,” he said eventually, “why does a financial plan exist for selling pieces of my company after a cyber disaster?”
Malcolm sat across from him with counsel present.
“Because boards prepare for disasters.”
“Who commissioned it?”
“I did.”
“Who authorized you?”
“As CFO, I don't require authorization to conduct scenario planning.”
Margaret Sloan joined by video.
“You do when the scenario includes negotiations with an outside buyer.”
Malcolm's attorney interjected.
“There were no negotiations.”
Claire opened the metadata.
“Then why are there document comments from Kestrel's managing partner?”
Nobody spoke.
Vanessa felt the room tilt.
Richard's voice became quieter.
“Malcolm.”
The CFO looked at him.
“We needed options.”
“For what?”
“For you.”
Richard stared.
Malcolm leaned forward.
“You refuse to discuss succession honestly. You built a company worth more than either of us imagined, then decided bloodline was governance.”
Vanessa's spine stiffened.
“This is about me?”
“Partly.”
Richard's eyes narrowed.
“You went to Kestrel because you didn't want Vanessa to succeed me?”
“I went to Kestrel because markets punish sentiment.”
Vanessa expected anger.
Instead, she felt strangely hollow.
“How long have you been planning this?”
Malcolm looked at her.
“You think this began with you?”
Richard stood.
“Answer her.”
“Eighteen months.”
Claire inhaled.
Ethan glanced at Vanessa.
She remembered the security warnings he said had been ignored for more than a year.
“Eighteen months,” she repeated.
Malcolm's attorney whispered to him.
He ignored the advice.
“Harrington Global needs consolidation. You expanded too fast. Richard refused to consider divestment. Vanessa wanted the CEO title while approving every growth initiative her father praised.”
Vanessa hated that part because it contained truth.
“But cyber sabotage?” she asked.
Malcolm's expression sharpened.
“I did not cause the attack.”
“Then why did you build a sale model around one?”
“Because cyber failure is one of the most obvious risks facing this company.”
Ethan spoke from the back of the room.
“Except your model uses last night's exact sequence.”
Everyone turned.
Malcolm's lawyer said, “Excuse me?”
Ethan stepped toward the screen.
“Manufacturing isolation. Client portal disruption. Backup corruption. Those are the three pathways the attacker attempted.”
Malcolm's face remained controlled.
“Common attack vectors.”
“Maybe.”
Vanessa almost laughed at Ethan's favorite word.
He zoomed the document.
“Except the draft is dated six months ago.”
Richard's eyes moved to Malcolm.
Ethan continued.
“And the order matches what happened last night.”
Claire whispered, “My God.”
Malcolm looked genuinely startled.
Vanessa could not tell whether that frightened her more or less.
“If Malcolm planned the attack,” she said slowly, “why would he leave a document predicting it?”
Ethan nodded.
“Exactly.”
Richard turned.
“Explain.”
“I think Northstar is real. I think Malcolm was secretly planning an asset sale.”
Malcolm's attorney started objecting.
Ethan kept talking.
“But I don't think this proves he launched the breach.”
Vanessa frowned.
“Then what does it prove?”
“That whoever launched it knew about Northstar.”
Silence.
Ethan pointed to the document.
“They copied Malcolm's scenario closely enough that when we found this, we'd stop looking.”
Malcolm stared at him.
For the first time, fear replaced arrogance.
Claire asked, “Who had access?”
Malcolm did not answer.
Richard did.
“Malcolm.”
The CFO closed his eyes.
“Four people.”
“Names.”
“Me. Edward Pike.”
Edward looked stunned.
“My strategy analyst, Laura Chen.”
“And?”
Malcolm hesitated.
Vanessa felt something cold move through her.
“Who is the fourth?”
Malcolm looked directly at her.
“Your executive assistant.”
Vanessa's breath caught.
“Rachel?”
Malcolm nodded.
“She helped prepare the financial presentations.”
Vanessa immediately reached for her phone.
Then remembered security had it.
“Where is she?”
Claire checked employee tracking.
Rachel Morgan had entered the building at 7:42 that morning.
At 8:19, four minutes after Richard stopped Vanessa from firing Ethan, Rachel had left.
May you like
![92 The Girl They Called Broke Was a Billionaire’s Daughter—But Her Father’s Arrival Exposed a Secret Powerful People Had Buried for Years]](https://cdn.treeiq.biz/site_590/2026/11/clone-0-0915d882-53d7-4d17-b43a-a010ca1a1068.webp)
She had not returned.
And according to access records, at 1:58 a.m., someone using Rachel's badge had entered the forty-first floor.
