"The photographer asked us to move closer together.

Stripped of my official credentials, I couldn't access state databases. But I still had my mind, my notes, and a network of people who cared about the law more than corporate politics.

That night, my doorbell rang. Standing in the hallway was David Vance—Grant’s estranged older brother.

I stared at him in disbelief. "David?"

"Can I come in?" he asked, pulling up his coat collar. "Before Grant’s private investigators see me."

David was the black sheep of the Vance family. Ten years older than Grant, he had walked away from the family empire years ago to practice public defense law in the inner city. He was rugged, reserved, and had long ago cut ties with his father’s lavish lifestyle.

"Why are you here?" I asked as he sat at my small kitchen table.

"Because Grant is a monster, and my father built the cage he grew up in," David said plainly. He placed a heavy, encrypted flash drive onto the table between us. "Grant thinks he wiped his internal server records when he framed you yesterday. He didn't know I kept backups of the medical clinic accounts from when I was still an equity trustee five years ago."

I looked at the drive, then at him. "Why are you helping me? He’s your brother."

"He’s destroying human lives, Clara," David said, his dark eyes filled with genuine anguish. "Those rehabilitation clinics... they aren't just overbilling insurance. They’re intentionally keeping patients addicted, cycling them through facilities to continuously draw government subsidies while withholding actual medical treatment. Two people died of overdoses at the Crestview facility last month because they cut nursing staff to boost quarterly margins."

A cold shudder ran down my spine. This wasn't just corporate fraud; it was manslaughter.