"Enough to recreate the critical parts of the design. We have the access record, but it's tied to an internal service account. We don't know who used it."
Charlotte looked at Evan, then at Marcus. "Preserve the logs, contain the account, and notify Helen's team. Don't send an accusation to the board until the evidence is secured."
When she ended the call, the room seemed to close around them. The vanished employment file, the obsolete label, the fault in the prototype, and the new data export no longer looked like separate inconveniences. They were signs of a present threat moving along a trail laid down by an old one. A former engineer had been blamed for theft, and somebody now appeared to be stealing again while arranging for the evidence to point toward the same family.
"It's happening again," Evan said.
"Yes," Charlotte answered. "And whoever is doing it knows that you're here."
He stood slowly. "Then my daughter may be part of their calculations too."
Charlotte started to say he was safe, but stopped. Promises about safety had been made to Daniel Carter by people who did not protect him. She called her security director and requested a confidential risk assessment for Evan and Lily, with assistance offered only if Evan agreed. He listened, considered the implications, and finally nodded. He would not allow his child to become an exhibit in a corporate war, but he was not going to pretend the danger was imaginary.
Priya organized the discovered documents into a preliminary inventory, leaving the room secured for a formal review. Helen began contacting independent board committee members so the investigation could continue outside Charlotte's personal control. Marcus stayed behind after the others moved into the corridor, looking at Daniel's handwriting on the wall chart. Evan stopped beside him.
"Did your father ever say he was sorry?" Evan asked.
Marcus looked at the floor. "Not once. Even at the end, he talked about how unfairly he'd been treated."
"And you believed him?"
"For years. Then I read what he kept. I didn't know how to live with it, so I did nothing."
Evan wanted to tell him what that silence had cost. He wanted to list the jobs lost, the whispers in school hallways, the way his mother had stopped opening newspapers. But he could see that Marcus already understood the charge and could do nothing to return the years. Instead, Evan looked at the handwriting beneath his father's name.
"Doing nothing is a choice," he said. "You can make a different one now."
Marcus lowered his head. "That's why I'm here."
They left the basement together, though not as allies yet. Outside, the autumn air was unexpectedly clear, and sunlight struck the rusted factory windows. Evan paused beside the old loading dock and looked back at a place that had haunted his family for twenty years. The truth had not arrived all at once, and it had not arrived with the comfort he imagined.