This food poisoning business had unnerved me. There was something so very wrong about it. My employees had been robbed of their dignity.
Sinister and vindictive.
Kael remained silent.
??????
The project details came through from someone called Nika Horvat.
The name didn’t ring a bell. Junior, probably. One of the invisible ones who kept the work moving while the project leads took the credit and the client lunches. Claire had said she’d have a team member compile everything—this must be them.
I opened the attachments and started working through them.
The documentation was thorough. More thorough than I’d expected—clean, well structured, the kind of file that had been built carefully over time by someone who actually understood the system rather than someone summarising other people’s notes. Anomalies flagged. Patterns tracked. Early amendments documented with enough context to understand not just what had been changed but why.
Whoever Nika Horvat was, they knew this project.
Then I got to the budget.
I stopped.
Went back.
Checked the figures again.
The budget had increased.
Twice.
I sat back in my chair and looked at the ceiling for a moment, then back at the screen.
The Project Lead’s name was Andrew Dunhill. I checked the amendment sign-offs. Dunhill’s name was on both increases, both approved up the chain without, as far as I could see, adequate justification documented at either stage. The kind of creep that happened when nobody was watching closely enough.
Cuán’s board was going to have a field day.
I was going to have words with Andrew Dunhill’s senior.
I pulled up the email and typed a response to Nika Horvat—asked that he come to the conference room tomorrow morning, and to bring any other team members not currently impacted by the food poisoning incident.
I wanted eyes on this project and I wanted them tomorrow.
I hit send and reached for my coffee.
Kael stirred.
Just slightly. The way he did when something had caught his attention before I’d caught it myself.
I ignored him and kept reading.
Chapter 12
Nika
Kilcullen Tech’s CEO was emailing me.
Personally.
I sat with that for a moment.
