I touched the inside of my jacket, feeling the hard edge of the encrypted datapad in my breast pocket. The DOJ warrant. The wiretap transcripts. The end of Richard Vance.

I prepared to move on the room. But before I could, a screech of microphone feedback tore out of the main ballroom, slicing the tension like a scalpel.

“Testing,” a woman’s voice rang out.

I stepped back from the door. Sophia was standing at the podium. She looked stunning in white lace, but her expression was fierce — a commander stepping onto a battlefield.

My father rushed out of the private room, panicked. “What is she doing? The speeches aren’t for another ten minutes.”

Sophia took a deep breath. She wasn’t looking at her parents. She was scanning the back of the room, until her eyes locked onto mine.