The holographic web of Alistair Finch's crimes pulsed silently in the sterile air between Leo and Evelyn. It was a monument to forty years of corruption, a constellation of shell corporations, secret accounts, and systematic fraud. They had done it. They had mapped the ghost's soul.
"It's done," Evelyn said, her voice a low, clinical hum that did little to hide the fierce, triumphant zeal in her eyes. "This is the most comprehensive dossier of executive-level malfeasance ever compiled. We take this to the TitanCorp board of directors. A private, emergency session. They will have no choice but to demand his immediate resignation. It will be a quiet, surgical, and efficient removal."
She was right. It was the logical, professional, and sane course of action. It was the path that would minimize damage to the company, protect the shareholders, and ensure a smooth transition of power.
It was completely unacceptable to Leo.
"No," Leo said, his voice so cold it seemed to lower the temperature in the room.
Evelyn's head snapped toward him, her expression a mixture of confusion and annoyance. "No? Mr. Zhang, we have him. This is checkmate."
"This is not checkmate," Leo countered, his gaze fixed on the glowing web of data. "This is a quiet abdication. If we go to the board, Finch will be allowed to 'retire due to health reasons.' He will keep his billions. He will keep his reputation as a visionary founder who made a few mistakes. His legend will survive. The cancer will be removed, but the ghost will remain to haunt the machine."
He turned to face her, his eyes holding the flat, dead light of a predator who has moved beyond simple victory and now desires only annihilation.
"My objective is not to remove Alistair Finch," he stated. "My objective is to erase him. I don't want him to retire. I want him in a federal prison. I don't want him to be a flawed legend. I want his name to become a cautionary tale, a synonym for corruption and hubris."
Evelyn stared at him, a dawning horror and a flicker of awe in her eyes. She was a purist who sought to correct the system. She was now face-to-face with a revolutionary who wanted to burn it to the ground and build a new one in his own image.
"What you're proposing is corporate suicide," she whispered. "To make this public… the stock will plummet. The media will start a feeding frenzy. It could trigger government investigations that could cripple this company for years."
"Good," Leo said. "Let it burn. A company that allowed a man like Finch to reign for forty years needs to be purified by fire. The stock will recover. But the old ways, the backroom deals, the quiet 'retirements' for the powerful… all of that will burn away. It will create a power vacuum that a new kind of leader can fill."
He laid out his plan. It was not a corporate coup; it was a nuclear option. They would compile the entire dossier—every shell company, every fraudulent invoice, every secret payment—into a single, encrypted file. They would not give it to the board.
They would leak it. Simultaneously. To the SEC, the FBI, the Wall Street Journal, and every major international financial news outlet.
It was a declaration of total war, not just on Finch, but on the entire culture of quiet corruption that enabled him.
Evelyn was silent for a long time, her mind, a perfect analytical engine, processing the sheer, terrifying audacity of Leo's strategy. Her entire career had been about maintaining order, about using the rules to enforce justice. Leo was proposing to use justice to create chaos.
"This is not efficient," she finally said, the words almost a prayer to her own ideology.
"It is the ultimate efficiency," Leo countered. "It doesn't just solve the problem of one man. It solves the problem of the system that created him. It is a one-time event that will permanently alter the operational reality of this entire industry."
He looked at her, seeing the war within her—the auditor versus the zealot. "You wanted the truth, Evelyn. The whole truth. A quiet board removal is a redacted truth. This… this is the truth in its purest, most destructive, and most beautiful form."
He had offered her the one thing she could not refuse. Not power, not money, but the chance to be the architect of the single greatest act of corporate truth-telling in history.
A slow, dangerous smile touched Evelyn Reed's lips. "Compile the dossier," she said. "Let's burn it all down."