You sit back as if you’ve been shoved.
Your entire day replays in your mind like a sick magic trick.
The lawyers in the lobby, the investors demanding answers, the sudden “fraud allegations” that arrived with perfect timing.
It wasn’t chaos. It was choreography.
You grip the edge of the old desk in the closet and force air into your lungs.
“Why didn’t you go to the police?” you ask.
Luis’s mouth tightens. “Because cops don’t arrest people who buy their kids scholarships.”
He points at the screen. “But federal agencies love paper trails. And this is a whole library.”
You scroll through the folders with shaking hands.
Emails. Contracts. Internal chat logs. A spreadsheet labeled “CONTROLLED LEAK CALENDAR.”
There’s a file called DEEPFAKE_AUDIO_TEST, and your skin goes cold again.
You open it and hear your own voice, clear as day, saying: “I approve the numbers. Push it through.”
Your stomach drops.
It sounds like you. It breathes like you. It even carries that slight pause you make before big decisions.
You feel your mouth go dry because you suddenly understand the weapon: they didn’t just steal your company, they stole your identity.
