"Protecting confidential materials," Richard replied. "Something somebody should have done before your new hire started pulling apart contracts he doesn't understand."
"These contracts belong to Grant Logistics."
"And I've spent twenty-two years preserving this company while you were busy learning how to inherit it."
The words landed in the dusty room with a force that surprised even Richard. Victoria's eyes narrowed. She had heard variations of that accusation in the months after her father's death, but never with the mask fully removed.
"My father trusted you," she said.
"Your father depended on me. There's a difference."
Daniel stood beside the table with his hands visible. He was acutely conscious of the phone recording in his jacket pocket and of the weight of the box behind him. He did not expect Richard to confess anything; people who had spent years controlling conversations rarely surrendered them so easily. But he wanted to keep the man talking long enough for the patrol officers to arrive and for company counsel to secure the scene.
"We found several invoices without freight records," Daniel said. "We found authorizations that don't match the original approvals. We also found a document signed in Henry Grant's name three months after his death."
Richard's gaze sharpened. "Those files are not for a regional director."
"That doesn't make the dates change."
"You think you're a hero because you adjusted some truck routes?" Richard asked. "You haven't been here long enough to understand the people whose careers you're destroying."
"Then explain what the payments were for."
Richard took a step closer. "There are arrangements a company makes to survive. Emergency capacity. Relationships. Opportunities that disappear if you insist every decision fit on a spreadsheet. Henry understood that, until he got old and started listening to the wrong people."
Victoria moved toward him. "Did you forge his signature?" Richard looked away for the first time. "Your father left a business that could not afford indecision. I protected what he built."
"By transferring company money to a vendor nobody can verify?"
"By keeping the doors open when your father was no longer capable of understanding the risks."
Victoria stared at him. Her voice dropped. "You killed my father."
The room went very quiet. Even Branson stopped shifting his weight by the door. Richard's expression hardened into something colder than anger.
"No," he said. "Your father drove himself to the end. He chose to fight the people who kept his company alive, and he worked himself into the ground doing it."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the answer you don't want." He pointed toward the box. "Those records need to come with me. The originals are subject to executive confidentiality."
Victoria shook her head. "No. Our legal team has a preservation hold on them." Richard turned to the guard. "Take the box."
Branson hesitated. "Mr. Vail, she says she's the CEO."
"I know who she is. Move."