The Folder

Delphine Ortiz handled governance and compliance for the board, a role most people in the building treated as furniture — present, useful for signatures, otherwise ignored. Naomi had spoken to her twice in four years, both times about expense reports.

She caught her in the stairwell, the one place in the building without cameras logging who talked to whom. "I need ten minutes and I need it to not go anywhere yet."

Delphine studied her for a second too long before nodding. "My office. Door closed."

Naomi laid it out — the timestamp, the deleted thread, Odalys, the exit file with its scrawled G.S. approved. Delphine listened without interrupting, her face giving away nothing, which somehow made it worse.

When Naomi finished, Delphine was quiet for a long moment. Then she opened a drawer, pulled out a slim folder, and set it on the desk without opening it.

"Three anonymous complaints in five years," she said. "About Graham Sutter. Attribution issues, one of them almost word for word what you just told me. I flagged it to Whit Pemberton eighteen months ago and asked for a formal review."

"And?"

"He said Graham brought in forty percent of last year's board-level partnerships personally, and that an internal review over unverified attribution claims would spook exactly the relationships we couldn't afford to lose. He closed it as insufficiently substantiated." Delphine's voice stayed level, but her hand, resting on the folder, had gone white-knuckled. "I've been waiting two years for someone to bring me something Whit couldn't wave away."

"Is what I have enough?"

"Not yet. A login timestamp proves access, not authorship. You need something that shows the idea existed as yours before he ever touched it — a version history, a draft with a date on it that predates any conversation with him. Something a room full of lawyers can't argue with."

Naomi thought of the raw model file still sitting untouched in her private drive, dated months before that first hallway conversation with Graham.

"I might have exactly that," she said.

Delphine's expression finally shifted — not relief, something sharper. "Then we need to talk about how careful you're about to need to be. Because the moment you pull that file, if there really is someone feeding him information, he'll know within the hour."