The penthouse dining table was covered in documents, but the mood was no longer one of panic. It was cold calculation.
“Arthur was on the board in 1998,” William said, pacing the room. “If he releases the file on my father, he implicates himself in the cover-up. That’s why he hasn’t leaked it to the press yet. He’s showing it to *me* because he thinks I’m too emotional to realize he’s holding a grenade with the pin pulled out.”
“But mutual destruction isn’t a victory,” Victoria countered, leaning over the timeline they had drawn out. “If he leaks it, you lose the company’s reputation, and he goes to federal prison. He’s betting that you love the Croft legacy more than he loves his freedom.”
“He’s right,” William admitted, stopping by the window. “I can’t let my father be branded a criminal, Victoria. Even if Arthur goes down with the ship, the Croft name sinks too.”
“Then we don’t use the past,” Victoria decided, her eyes narrowing. “We use the present.”
She pulled up a profile of Sterling Global on her tablet. “Arthur Sterling didn’t build a massive empire in the last decade by playing by the rules. Dominic told me once that his father moves money through shell companies in the Caymans to avoid taxes and hide acquisitions.”
William looked at her, understanding dawning on his face. “If we find proof of *current* tax fraud or money laundering, we don’t just threaten him with a twenty-year-old cold case. We threaten to freeze his assets *today*.”
“We need the ledger,” Victoria said. “And there is only one person who can get it.”