Chapter 113 The Fifteenth of the Month

The presentations rolled on. Serena sat rigid in her chair, mind spinning through exits.

There weren’t any.

The clock ran down. Sterling Group had drawn the final slot.

Alpha Killian took his place beside the screen. Low, steady voice, no wasted words, laying out how Sterling would put the Sovereign Processor into power grids, border defense systems, and remote territories still running on hardware nobody in this country builds.

A big swing. But with Sterling’s money and Sterling’s connections, nobody in the room doubted they could land it.

He closed strong.

"The Sovereign Processor is a step toward real independence. Our grids, our border systems, our territories, all of it running on chips we buy from somewhere else. We’ve been leasing the brains of our own infrastructure long enough. Sterling is committed to making sure this one stays in our hands."

Eira allowed herself the smallest smile. He’d nailed it. Tied the whole pitch back to what this project was built for in the first place: security and self-reliance.

Her team clapped along.

Claire leaned over. "This one’s gonna be close. Hale’s got the industry track record, Sterling’s got the resources and the vision. Coin flip."

People started gathering their things.

Then Alpha Killian spoke again.

"One more thing. I have a document for the committee."

He glanced at Miles.

Miles popped the lid off the box and started working his way down the table, laying a bound copy in front of each committee member.

The room went dead quiet.

--

"What’s in it?" Claire squinted at the feed.

Eira didn’t open her copy. She already knew.

In the main hall, nobody was packing up anymore. Reps from every bidding company dropped back into their chairs. Somebody near the door said, "Hell of a time for an encore."

Alpha Sebastian didn’t laugh.

Something felt off. Alpha Killian Sterling didn’t do surprises. He did setups, and he did them early, and by the time you noticed one you were already standing in it.

Miles worked down the committee side of the table. Twenty seats, twenty folders. Then the box was empty. The company reps got nothing.

Covers opened. Pages turned.

Then the room went quiet, all at once, the way it does when twenty people hit the same line together.

Every head turned toward Victor Winthrop.

Victor hadn’t touched his. He opened it.

Page one stopped him cold.

Page two made him shut the folder and shove it away like it was hot.

"Mr. Sterling. What is this?"

Alpha Killian hadn’t left the podium. He sounded like a man reading a delivery schedule.

"Sterling ran diligence on the consultant roster last month. We found something. Our counsel says we’re required to report it, so I’m reporting it. That’s all this is."

"Where did you get any of this?" Victor’s voice cracked on it. "You don’t have access to private accounts."

"We don’t, and we didn’t." Alpha Killian turned to the first tab. "Everything in section one is public. Deed of sale. Vehicle title. Two LLC filings. My team pulled it in an afternoon."

He turned to the second tab.

"Section two is a sworn declaration from Hale Group’s former assistant controller. She flagged the same payment eleven times and got moved to a different department for it. She signed that in front of our counsel last Thursday and she’s willing to sign it again for you."

"Get to it," an official said.

"Serena Winthrop is an external consultant on this program." He didn’t look at a single note. "The fifteenth of every month, Hale Group wires her three hundred thousand dollars. Same day, same amount, same account. Forty-eight months running. Their books call it research funding."

A pause.

"Fourteen point four million."

The room came apart. Not loud. Worse. Twenty people talking low and fast at the same time, three laptops closing at once.

Alpha Sebastian shot to his feet.

Two rooms away, Serena did the same thing at the same second.

"Sterling isn’t saying what that money was for," Alpha Killian said. "I’ll say nobody funds research on the fifteenth of the month."

He turned a page.

"And it didn’t come out of Mr. Hale’s pocket. It cleared through a Hale Group operating account, forty-eight times, coded to R&D. Somebody in that building approved every one of them."

Two of the committee members looked at each other.

"Last eight months, Miss Winthrop bought a penthouse north of a million. Jewelry. A car titled to a Hale corporate account. Paperwork’s in the packet."

He turned to the committee.

"We’re asking for a full audit of every transfer and every message between them. And we’re asking the record to show Sterling brought it."

Alpha Sebastian went white, then red. "This is a hit job and you’re all just sitting here."

"Mr. Hale." The chair didn’t look up. "I’d stop talking."

"You can’t let him stand there and—"

"Sit down. This session’s on the record."

Hale’s outside counsel leaned into Alpha Sebastian’s ear. Whatever he said, Alpha Sebastian sat.

Alpha Killian hadn’t moved once.

Alpha Sebastian might as well have been yelling at a parked car.

"Dr. Victor Winthrop." The chair finally looked up. "Who signed her conflict-of-interest form?"

Victor’s face had gone blotchy red down into his collar. "She was vetted. She signed the same NDA everybody signed. She would never put this program at risk."

"That’s not what I asked. Who signed it?"

Silence.

"Doctor."

"I did."