You should have stopped looking.
Five words, yet they carried enough weight to make the silence in the study feel suffocating.
Brielle stood across from him, her eyes fixed on the screen as she tried to determine whether the message was a warning, a threat, or something far more deliberate.
Dorian slowly lowered the phone, his expression hardening as he glanced towards the documents scattered across the desk.
Whoever had sent it knew they were still investigating.
More importantly, they knew enough to realize that the warning might actually make them look harder.
“They know,” Dorian said quietly.
Brielle folded her arms, her gaze remaining on the phone.
“Or they want us to believe they know.” Dorian looked at her, and for a moment neither of them spoke.
She had a point.
Over the past few days, every discovery they had made seemed to be followed by something that either erased the evidence or redirected their attention somewhere else.
The missing records, the anonymous messages, the attempted transactions and the people who seemed to know exactly what they were searching for—it was becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between what they had genuinely uncovered and what someone had deliberately placed in their path.
“I think whoever is behind this has been controlling what we see,” Brielle continued.
“The moment we get close to something, it disappears.
The moment we follow one lead, another appears.
Why send us a warning now unless they want us to react?” Dorian walked towards the desk and placed his phone beside the folder.
“Then we don’t react.” Brielle raised an eyebrow.
“And what do we do?” “Nothing they expect.” He opened the folder again, spreading the remaining documents across the desk.
Most of the pages were ordinary financial records, supplier agreements and internal correspondence, yet Brielle had learned by now that the ordinary-looking details were often where the answers were buried.
She moved beside him and began examining the documents one by one, comparing dates and amounts while Dorian studied the authorization trails.
For several minutes, neither of them spoke.
The silence between them was no longer uncomfortable; it was concentrated, almost deliberate, as though both understood that every small detail might matter.
Brielle suddenly stopped and pulled one of the supplier records closer.
“Wait.” Dorian immediately looked up.
“What?” She pointed towards the document.
“Look at the dates.” He stepped beside her, his eyes moving over the figures.
“What about them?” “The supplier change happened here, three days before the payment was approved.” She tapped another section of the record.
“But the bank details weren’t changed in the same system.” Dorian frowned.
“They were changed through Procurement.” “Exactly.” Brielle turned another page.
“And this payment was approved through Finance two days later.
Whoever changed the supplier information didn’t need access to the payment system.
They only needed someone else to approve the payment.” Dorian’s expression hardened as the pattern began to emerge.
“Different people.
Different departments.” “Different fingerprints,” Brielle murmured.
“But the same result.” Dorian leaned against the edge of the desk, staring at the records.
They had spent days searching for the person behind the authorization code, assuming that whoever possessed it might eventually lead them to the person controlling everything.
But perhaps that assumption had been wrong from the beginning.
Brielle gathered the documents together, arranging them in chronological order until the scattered transactions began to resemble a single process rather than a collection of unrelated incidents.
“We’ve been looking at the transactions individually,” she said.
Dorian glanced at her.
“Which means?” “They’re not individual.” She tapped the first record.
“They’re stages.
Someone changes the supplier details.
Someone else approves the purchase.
Another person authorizes the payment, and then someone makes sure the transaction disappears into the system.” Dorian’s eyes narrowed.
“They don’t need one person controlling everything.” Brielle shook her head.
“They only need several people doing one small thing each.” The realization settled heavily between them.
It explained why tracing the authorization code had brought them to Hale without giving them the answer they needed.
Hale could have been involved without being the person directing the entire operation.
He could have been one of several people being used to keep the machinery moving.
“Then Hale wasn’t the center of it,” Dorian said.
“No.” Brielle’s voice softened as she looked at the records.
“He was a piece of it.” Dorian’s jaw tightened.
“And probably one of the pieces they could afford to sacrifice.” Brielle said nothing.
The thought unsettled her more than she wanted to admit.
If they were right, then the people involved were not necessarily working together because they wanted to.
Some could have been frightened.
Others could have been bribed.
Some might not even have understood the full extent of what they were participating in.
That made the situation more dangerous, not less, because it meant they couldn’t simply assume that every person involved knew where the trail ultimately led.
“We need to stop looking at who has access,” Brielle said after a moment.
“We need to look at who benefits every time that access is used.” Dorian looked at her.
“That’s harder.” “I know.” She gathered the documents into one stack, but before she could place them back inside the folder, Dorian’s phone vibrated on the desk.
Both of them turned towards it.
He picked it up and glanced at the screen.
This time there was no anonymous message waiting for them.
Instead, a notification from Wolfe Enterprises’ internal security system had appeared.
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS ATTEMPT — PROCUREMENT ARCHIVE.
Dorian’s expression changed instantly.
“Someone’s trying to access the procurement archive.” Brielle stepped closer.
“Now?” He nodded and immediately opened the security logs.
The attempt was coming from an internal terminal, but the system had blocked the request before the archive could be opened.
Dorian began tracing the terminal while Brielle watched the information appearing across the screen.
Whoever was attempting to access the archive had used a route that made the source difficult to identify, but there was something familiar about the pattern.
“They’re moving through the internal network,” Dorian said.
Brielle leaned closer.
“Can you trace them?” “I’m trying.” The terminal identification changed.
Then changed again.
Dorian’s fingers moved faster across the keyboard as he followed the trail.
“They’re rerouting the request.” “Through different departments?” “Different systems.” Brielle’s eyes narrowed.
“They know the infrastructure.” Dorian didn’t answer.
He was too focused on the screen, but the tension in his shoulders was enough to tell her he had reached the same conclusion.
Whoever was doing this understood Wolfe Enterprises’ systems well enough to move through them without immediately exposing themselves.
Then, without warning, the access attempt disappeared.
Dorian stared at the screen.
“Gone.” Brielle didn’t move.
Her eyes remained fixed on the security log, her mind replaying the sequence of events.
The timing was too precise.
They had barely received the anonymous warning before someone attempted to access the exact archive they had been discussing.
It couldn’t be coincidence.
“They weren’t trying to get into the archive,” she said.
Dorian slowly looked at her.
“What?” “They wanted us to see them trying.” His expression darkened.
The room fell silent again.
The warning, the attempted transaction, the missing records and now this deliberate access attempt were beginning to look less like separate acts of desperation and more like a conversation.
Whoever was behind this wasn’t simply protecting the scheme anymore.
They were watching how Brielle and Dorian reacted, testing how far they were willing to go and how quickly they could be manipulated.
Brielle’s gaze drifted towards the phone lying beside the documents.
You should have stopped looking.
She remembered the words again, and something about them felt different now.
The message had not mentioned Wolfe Enterprises.
It had not mentioned the investigation.
It had addressed them.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that the warning had been meant for her.
Dorian noticed the change in her expression.
“What are you thinking?” Brielle hesitated before looking at him.
“That maybe we’ve been asking the wrong question.” “What question?” “Who is trying to protect the scheme?” Dorian waited.
Brielle’s eyes returned to the phone.
“Maybe we should be asking what they want from us.” The thought lingered between them, heavier than either of them expected.
For the first time since the investigation began, Brielle wondered whether uncovering the truth was the only reason someone had been watching her so closely.
And if it wasn’t, then the question was no longer simply who was behind Wolfe Enterprises’ downfall.
It was why they were so interested in her.