At nine-fifteen, Sloane began another livestream. She walked backward while Bradley described Monday's expected announcement, and the skyline behind them glittered like a promise. Loretta watched from the side as Sloane called Bradley the future face of Belmont Row and invited her audience to tune in for a live broadcast from the company meeting. Bradley smiled into the camera with a confidence that made it almost painful to imagine how he would react when the story changed.
Patricia joined Loretta near the elevator. "You're leaving?"
"I've seen enough."
"Should I tell him?"
"No. Monday morning, Bradley. Be early."
She had spoken the last sentence directly to him because he approached while Patricia was still beside the elevator. Bradley seemed to misunderstand it as an appeal for a meeting he had no intention of granting. "Don't worry about her, Patricia," he said with a dismissive wave. "She's gone."
"Monday morning," Patricia repeated, her voice unusually firm. "Be early."
"I'll be there," Bradley said. "I've got an announcement to make."
Loretta stepped into the elevator with Patricia and watched the doors close on his smiling face. She had not humiliated him, threatened him, or asked him to give her a better chair. She had allowed him to say whatever he wished in a place where he felt untouchable. That was precisely why the words would matter when people began asking what he knew and when he had known it.
At 11:40 that night, Loretta's phone received a formal approval request from the newly acquired company's financial system. The amount was $180,000, the vendor was Lakeside Advisory LLC, and Bradley Kincaid was listed as requester. Dennis Vale appeared as the finance approver, and a short description referred to completion of strategic consulting services. Loretta took a screenshot, confirmed that the payment remained pending, and forwarded the notification to the independent audit team with a request that it be preserved in the original system.
Nia called almost immediately. "You're not approving it, are you?"
"No. And I don't want it quietly rejected yet, either. It can stay pending under the normal approval rules while the auditors preserve the records Monday morning."
"What if Bradley notices?"
"Then he'll know someone read the invoice. It may be the first useful thing the new owners have taught him."
Nia looked at the dashboard while Loretta was still on the line. The payment gateway showed no transfer had been released. That distinction mattered: the past $1.62 million was a set of completed transactions that needed to be traced, while the final $180,000 was an attempted payment that the new owner's controls had stopped from becoming another completed transfer. Even if the underlying services were legitimate, Bradley's confidence that the owners would approve it unread had proved misplaced.