Page 9 of You, Only You

Someone wasn't just cleaning house after problems surfaced. Someone was creating the conditions that forced these people out.

"Who are you?" I whispered to my screen.

The answer came from the security access logs I'd requested on day one.

Each personnel file had a digital footprint, a record of who'd accessed it and when. Most showed routine HR activity, supervisory reviews, and standard administrative touches. But one access code appeared with grim regularity in the weeks before each scandal broke.

WAS-1.

Will A. Steele.

I sat back in my chair, the leather creaking in the silence. The city glittered beyond the glass walls, thirty floors of indifferent beauty, and I pressed my palms flat against the table and counted to ten the way my therapist had taught me, during the six months of sessions I'd stopped attending because I'd convinced myself I was "managing fine."

He wasn't just a ruthless litigator. He was hunting people inside his own firm.

The ethics complaints suddenly made terrible sense. They weren't from sore losers or disgruntled rivals. They were from people who'd caught a glimpse of the pattern and tried, futilely, to flag it.

I should have felt vindicated. This was what an audit was supposed to find. Clear, documented, damning.

Instead, I felt something that made no professional sense whatsoever.

Curiosity.

Because the people he'd destroyed. They weren't rivals. Weren't competitors. Weren't random victims of a man exercising power for his own sake. They were, each and every one of them, people who had done genuinely terrible things.

That didn't fit the profile of a monster. It fit something else entirely. And I couldn't stop turning it over in my head, pokingat it, the same way I couldn't stop pulling at a number that didn't balance.

I gathered my tablet before I could talk myself out of it. The smart move was to document everything, call my supervisor, and file a preliminary report with the bar. That was the safe path. The procedural path. The correct path.

Instead, I walked down the darkened hallway toward Will Steele's office.

I was still formulating my opening line when I pushed the door open. It was becoming a pattern between this man and me:rehearse extensively, abandon everything on contact.

The door was ajar, warm light spilling across the carpet like an invitation or a trap. I pushed it open without knocking.

He sat behind his massive desk, sleeves rolled to his elbows, forearms braced on the polished wood as he stared at his laptop screen. The harsh monitor glow carved sharp shadows into his face, and for a split second before he looked up, I saw something I hadn't expected.

Exhaustion. Deep and bone-weary, the kind that sleep doesn't fix. The kind that comes from carrying something heavy for too long.

Then his eyes met mine, and the mask slammed down. But I'd seen it. The crack in the ice.

"Ms. Ashford." His voice was a low rumble in the quiet room. "Office hours ended four hours ago."

"I'm not here for office hours." I stepped inside, letting the door click shut behind me. "I know what you're doing."

Something flickered in his expression, either wariness or calculation, before it smoothed into perfect neutrality. "That's a bold opening. Care to be more specific?"

"The departures. Anders. Jenkins. Prentiss. Chen. Whitmore." I ticked the names off, watching his face for any reaction. He gave me nothing. "Every single one of themhad a scandal break within forty-eight hours of leaving this firm. Sealed settlements unsealed. Hidden convictions exposed. Anonymous tips to exactly the right journalists." I moved closer to his desk, my heart pounding faster than I wanted it to. "The pattern isn't a coincidence. It's orchestration."

"That's quite a theory."

"It's not a theory. I pulled the access logs." I held his gaze, refusing to blink. "Your code appears on every single file in the weeks before each person's downfall. WAS-1. You've been hunting them, Mr. Steele. The question isn't who, I've figured that out. The question is why."

He didn't move. Didn't blink. Just watched me with an expression I couldn't read, which was unusual, because reading people was literally what I did for a living.

Then, slowly:

"Why do you care?" he asked finally, his voice quiet. Almost gentle.