“Oh, Sena,” I said, and the speakers carried it, and the whole room turned back to my face on the wall.

“I’m so glad you raised the subject of con artists.”

She went still, the phone frozen in the air.

“While my investigators were looking into your affair,” I went on, “they found something interesting about your father’s company.

Mr.

Dalloway — were you aware that your primary European subsidiary is running on a modified, unlicensed copy of the Ardent IP algorithm?” Aldous Dalloway went rigid.