a cup of black coffee on Ace's desk. The tempe

. "I need a full M&A risk assessment

delivered it would officially t

d began pulling massive datasets from the server. Her ey

over, his cologne smelling sour mixed with his

laptop shut. The lou

Warren," she said, her

pure venom. He turned and w

elinda stood up to grab the physical copi

e beeped.

en to clear the crumpled paper. Her eyes w

ingers darted across her keyboard, hi

the printed report. She sat down to

d. Her stomach vi

her model had been altered. The

n dollar merger would fail, and she would b

o walk into the CEO's office. There wa

e forced her breathing to slow down, pulling the raw data fro

ang. Julian told

taged report and pushed

r, watching them like a pre

uzzwords, his voice overly loud to

eld up a hand, cutting

ed at D

er in her hands. She looked

risk hedging strategies entirely from memor

not even reading from her ow

threw her printed report onto

t report were manipula

ta showed her user ID logging out at the exact moment she went to the printer, followed immediately by a new login from a different terminal-Warren's assigned station-and a series of commands alt

collapsed into the chair

ked at Warren. He pressed the

Warren out of the r

he corner of his mouth lifting in a barely-there smir