The silence in Uncle Li's apartment was absolute. Emily stared at the contract on the screen, her father's signature staring back at her like a ghost reaching from the past, threatening to dismantle everything she'd built. Beside it, Alexander Drake's signature—or rather, his father's, representing Drake Industries—gleamed coldly in the digital light.
"Explain this," Emily said, her voice hollow. "Explain why your family was doing business with mine just a week before everything fell apart."
Alexander's jaw tightened, his eyes fixed on the document. "I need to make a call."
"No." Emily moved in front of him, blocking his path to the phone. "No more calls. No more secrets. You explain this to me right now, or I walk out that door, and you never see me again."
"You'd be dead within an hour," Alexander said flatly. "Madame Zhou has eyes on this building. The media is camped outside. You have nowhere to go."
