Chapter 12: The Call Button

"Here is what happens next," Caleb said.

Chantal lifted her head.

"I will not take you back."

"I'm not asking you to."

"You were about to."

She closed her mouth.

"I'm not going to protect you, either," he said.

"If I stay quiet, I'm lying for you a second time. I did it once for three years."

"Caleb."

"You have until the man in the crosswalk gets the truth. You tell it yourself, in public, with your own face. Or I find a way to make it come out."

"If I confess, Brannigan Group collapses."

"It collapses anyway. Your bid is dead and your stock has fallen nineteen percent by lunchtime."

"Fourteen thousand people work for me."

"Then they should know who they work for."

She flinched.

"That's cruel."

"It's the same price you set for me." He kept his voice flat.

"One life for the company. You didn't ask me what it cost."

She stared at him.

Then she nodded slowly.

"All right."

"All right?"

"I'll do it. I'll say it myself. Not tonight. Give me time to find the man and tell him first."

"That's fair."

"And Desmond?"

"Leave Desmond to me."

"He'll destroy you."

"He can try."

"He keeps a copy on a drive in his father's study," she said.

"The phone is not the only place. He told me once, to scare me. He said the original was somewhere nobody would look."

"Where?"

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