The anonymous email arrived at 8:17 on Tuesday morning.

Jamie opened it between two budget revisions and nearly spilled coffee across his keyboard.

The photograph showed him kissing Alexander in the parking garage.

Below it, a single sentence appeared: Resign by Friday, or everyone will learn how you earned your promotions.

Jamie read it twice. He hadn’t received a promotion. The accusation was ridiculous, which somehow made it more frightening.

He checked the sender. An address made of random letters and numbers.

Oliver noticed his face. “What happened?”

Jamie turned the screen away. “Nothing.”

“That’s the expression you make when something is very much happening.”

Jamie closed the email. “Can you cover my call with finance?”

“Jamie—”

“Please.”

Oliver nodded, though he looked unconvinced.

Jamie walked to an empty meeting room and stared at the photo again.

He could tell Alexander. He should tell Alexander. But the threat had been designed to make their relationship look like an abuse of power.

Alexander had already taken steps to separate their reporting lines. Jamie didn’t want the whole company dragged into a rumor before the paperwork was complete.

He saved the email and its technical headers. Then he contacted the internal ethics hotline, asking how to preserve evidence without triggering a premature announcement.

The adviser recommended forwarding the threat to security and legal immediately.

Jamie thanked her. He intended to follow the advice after confirming the source.

That delay would haunt him.

At the afternoon project review, Richard Vale arrived uninvited.

“Jamie,” he said pleasantly, “you’ve been working on Harbor’s revised vendor terms, correct?”

“Yes. The client requested a pricing comparison.”

“Excellent. Send me your working files.”

Jamie frowned. “The approved version is in the shared drive.”

“I’d like the working version.”

“Why?”

Richard’s smile thinned. “Because I’m the vice president overseeing the account.”

Jamie sent the files, but the exchange bothered him. Richard rarely cared about draft spreadsheets unless a board presentation was approaching.

Later, Jamie compared the latest contract with the version he had approved. A new consulting fee had appeared, payable to a vendor he didn’t recognize.

He checked the edit history. Several changes had been made after his review, using a senior administrator account.

Jamie copied the version numbers into his notebook.

Alexander found him still at his desk after seven.

“You missed dinner,” Alexander said.

“I had work.”

“You’ve been quiet all day.”

“Maybe I’m developing your personality.”

Alexander didn’t smile. “Something is wrong.”

Jamie looked at him and almost told the truth.

Then he pictured the anonymous photograph circulating through every department. He imagined coworkers whispering that his work had never mattered.

“I’m just tired,” Jamie said.

Alexander studied him. “You can talk to me.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Jamie hated the hurt beneath the question.

“Tomorrow,” he promised. “Let me finish checking something.”

Alexander nodded reluctantly. “Don’t stay too late.”

Jamie waited until the elevator doors closed before reopening the contract history.

The unfamiliar vendor had been created three months earlier. Its registered address belonged to a virtual office provider.

Jamie searched older Harbor invoices. The same vendor had received two smaller payments, both approved by Richard’s division.

He emailed a request for documentation to the finance compliance team.

Within minutes, his computer requested a password reset. Jamie frowned, entered his credentials, and watched the screen freeze.

A message appeared: Session expired. Please sign in again.

He did. The shared folder opened normally.

Jamie assumed the interruption was another irritating security update.

In the executive suite, Richard watched a secure dashboard display Jamie’s successful login.

A contractor had installed a credential-harvesting page disguised as the company’s authentication portal. Richard now had the access he needed.

He opened a remote session, selected several confidential files, and prepared an outbound transfer scheduled for the early morning.

The system would record Jamie’s username as the sender.

Meanwhile, Jamie received a second anonymous message.

You have until Friday. Don’t make your boyfriend choose between you and his company.

Jamie’s stomach dropped.

He forwarded both messages to a private evidence folder and called the ethics hotline again. This time he left his name and requested an urgent appointment.

The office lights clicked off automatically. Jamie sat alone in the dim glow of his monitor.

The ethics adviser had sounded calm on the phone, which Jamie found reassuring until he remembered that calm was also Alexander’s favorite disguise for disaster.

He wrote down everything he could remember about the email: the timestamp, the address, the exact wording, and the folder where he had saved the original. Then he made a second copy on an approved evidence portal.

His mother called during lunch. Jamie answered and tried to sound normal.

“You’re working too hard,” she said immediately.

“I’m cultivating the exhausted-professional aesthetic.”

“You sound worried.”

“Just a difficult project.”

She paused. “You don’t have to tell me everything. But don’t confuse independence with being alone.”

Jamie stared at the vending machine across the corridor. It was irritating how everyone in his life had suddenly become wise.

“I know, Mom.”

“Good. And eat something green.”

After the call, Jamie found Oliver waiting with a salad.

“Your mother called me,” Oliver said.

“She did not.”

“No. But your face suggests she should.”

Jamie accepted the salad. He wanted to tell Oliver about the photograph, but the email’s accusation still burned. He had worked too hard to be reduced to a rumor about sleeping his way upward.

In the afternoon, Jamie requested a record of everyone who had accessed the Harbor vendor folder. The request was denied because the file was restricted to senior management.

He tried another route, comparing invoice approval dates with meeting minutes. One payment had been authorized while the designated approver was overseas.

Jamie circled the date in red.

“Interesting,” he whispered.

He drafted an email to Alexander with the subject: Something is wrong with Harbor. He wrote three paragraphs, then deleted them. The evidence was incomplete, and the anonymous threat made every word feel dangerous.

Instead, he asked finance for a standard audit trail. The request would create a documented record, even if he could not access the underlying files himself.

Richard passed Jamie’s desk that evening and glanced at the notebook.

“Working late again?” he asked.

“Trying to understand a vendor fee.”

“Those contracts can be complicated. Leave the senior-level details to senior management.”

Jamie smiled politely. “Of course.”

Richard walked away. Jamie wrote down the exchange, including the time.

He had no proof, and he understood that suspicion alone could destroy an innocent person.

He did not yet know whether Richard was involved. But the vice president’s sudden interest in his work had stopped feeling accidental.

When Alexander appeared later, Jamie almost reached for him. He stopped because two colleagues were still nearby. Alexander noticed the movement and quietly offered to walk him to the elevator.

Jamie declined. The disappointment in Alexander’s face stayed with him long after he went home.

He wanted Alexander beside him. He also wanted to solve one problem without being rescued.

Those desires were not opposites, he reminded himself. He simply hadn’t figured out how to hold both.

At 2:06 a.m., while Jamie slept, confidential Harbor documents left Sterling Group’s network through an encrypted transfer.

The audit log showed one employee account.

Jamie Parker.