During dinner she glanced at her phone again and again. When she excused herself, she carried her purse. Later, Derek sat in his study with a glass of bourbon and admitted what he had resisted. The man who knew every opponent’s secrets had been blind in his own house.

The next morning he called his younger brother Ryan, a private investigator in Denver. They had not spoken in months.

“I need surveillance,” Derek said.

Ryan’s tone was weary. “On who?”

“On Natalie. And on Tyler Morgan. Do not make noise about it.”

Three days later Ryan delivered a folder. Inside were photographs of Natalie and Tyler together. At a hotel bar, in a car, entering an apartment. The affair stretched back nearly a year.

Ryan’s voice was heavy. “It does not stop there. They met with a man named Travis Cole, a forger. Tyler has been liquidating assets, shifting them into crypto. They want to vanish.”

Derek closed the folder calmly. “They think I am weak.”