The news hit the front page before sunrise.
HOLLOWAY HOSPITAL SCANDAL EXPLODES: MILLIONS EMBEZZLED WHISTLEBLOWER REVEALED?
Kevin sat at the kitchen table of the tiny apartment, the USB drive cracked open beside his laptop. Headlines scrolled past on the screen local stations, national outlets, even a few international sites hungry for the drama of a rich man's empire rotting in the light.
He'd done it. Emily's ghost would sleep easier tonight.
But when he glanced across the kitchen, he saw Matt curled on the threadbare couch, knees hugged to her chest. Her eyes were red, but her voice was steady when she whispered, "It's done, right? He can't bury this now."
Kevin shut the laptop with a soft click. "It's done."
He didn't say We're safe. Because they weren't. Not really.
Richard Holloway didn't bother with subtlety anymore.
By dusk, Kevin's phone buzzed with messages from numbers he didn't recognize threats, bribes, demands to meet. Matt's phone rang every hour hospital board members, lawyers, even family friends calling to beg her to recant her story. One of Richard's men even came banging on the door of her apartment, but Kevin was already there he shoved Matt into his car before they could see her, disappearing into the city's shadows.
Now they were holed up in a cheap roadside motel the kind that reeked of stale coffee and bleach.
Matt sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the carpet like it might swallow her whole.
"They're going to ruin me," she said softly. "He's going to ruin me."
Kevin watched her from the far side of the room, arms crossed. He could see the tremor in her shoulders, the shine of tears she refused to shed.
"You ruined him first," he said coldly.
She flinched. Then she looked up at him eyes wide, raw with a kind of hope he wanted to crush. "But we'll leave together, right? Somewhere he can't find us. You and me."
Kevin stepped closer. He cupped her face, brushing his thumb over her cheek like he might kiss away the fear. She leaned into him, desperate for warmth. Desperate to believe he was her future.
"Of course we will," he lied.
He kissed her soft at first, then harder, pushing her backward onto the thin motel mattress. She gasped his name when his mouth moved down her throat, when his hands slid under her shirt, claiming every piece of her like he had a right to it.
Mine, he told himself. Just until the end.
He made love to her like a promise, though the only vow he kept was to his sister's memory that he'd ruin every Holloway to the bone.
Later, when she slept tangled in the scratchy sheets, Kevin sat in the glow of his phone screen.
A single contact stared back at him the last reporter who needed the final batch of stolen files. Bank logs. Offshore transfers. Private boardroom recordings Matt had stolen without even realizing how dangerous they were.
One tap, and Richard Holloway would be finished.
One tap, and so would Matt. Because once her name was in those files, there'd be no coming back. No redemption. No job. No safety. Not ever.
Kevin's thumb hovered over the SEND button. He looked back at Matt, asleep and bare in the half-dark, her arm reaching out for him even in her dreams.
A flicker of guilt crawled up his spine but he buried it deep, right next to the memory of Emily's cold hand.
He tapped SEND.
Outside the cheap motel, the world spun on unaware that by morning, one man's quest for justice would swallow them both whole.