Chapter 40: 48 Hours
Forty-eight hours was not long enough for panic, which was useful because panic loved empty time and turned minutes into enemies.
Serena had forty-eight hours for law, money, filings, trustees, banks, and the kind of people her father had kept behind doors Julian never knew existed.
At 6:11 p.m., Martin’s conference room changed from office to war table.
Helena Cross joined on screen with wet hair, no apology, and the expression of a woman who had cancelled something important without regret.
Priya pulled archived authorisations while Martin called the firm that had once employed Andrew Bell and used a tone so mild it sounded expensive.
Serena stood by the glass wall, reading the message again: They found your secondary account. You have 48 hours.
A threat was more useful when it named its own deadline, because deadlines told defenders where attackers planned to stand.
“What can they do?” Serena asked.
Martin ended one call and started another. “Apply for an emergency freezing order. Claim dissipation risk. Attach your sudden asset movements to marital concealment.”
“Can they win?”
“Not permanently.”
“Can they slow me?”
He did not answer quickly enough, and that was the answer.
Helena spoke from the screen. “If the secondary account is frozen before Morley transfers, it affects speed, not ownership. But speed is the battlefield tonight.”
Julian did not need to defeat Serena.
He needed to delay her long enough to pretend control, pressure Morley, and tell his board that her structure was unstable.
Unstable.
There was the word again, wearing a different suit and carrying another man’s stolen file.
Ivy had used pregnancy.
Julian had used marriage.
Now he would use court paper and privileged access, because rich panic always wanted official stationery.
“Who files for them?” Serena asked.
Martin looked at the audit log. “If Andrew leaked the account, he may feed a litigation solicitor. We watch the court lists and pre-empt the narrative.”
“How?”
Helena said, “By making their stolen information radioactive before they use it.”
Serena looked up.
For the first time all evening, something inside the room began to turn in her favour, not victory, but direction.
Martin nodded once. “We notify the regulator, the former firm, and the court duty office that privileged material was accessed improperly by former counsel.”
“Without naming strategy?”
“Only process.”
“Good.”
Priya was already drafting, her hands moving with the calm speed of someone who understood that paperwork could outrun panic.
At 6:39, the first preservation demand went to Andrew Bell’s former firm.
At 6:47, the firm acknowledged. At 6:52, their compliance partner called Martin, voice too calm to mean ordinary trouble.
At 7:03, Andrew Bell was locked out of his own office systems.
At 7:10, Julian called Andrew and received no answer, which was the first small sound of the trap turning back toward him.
Across town, Julian stood in his study, staring at the copied account image like a man holding fire and believing it was a torch.
Sloan’s failure had angered him. Andrew’s leak had revived him. “We file tonight,” he told his new litigation solicitor.
“On what basis?”
“Concealment. Dissipation. Marital asset flight.”
The solicitor hesitated. “We need to be careful how we obtained this.”
Julian closed his eyes. “I did not ask for careful. I asked for fast.”
At 7:28, Serena received Helena’s next message.
Whitmore emergency legal team notified.
Serena stared at the words.
Her father’s private team.
The people who had never appeared in Julian’s world because Richard Whitmore had designed them for the day after ordinary lawyers became too slow.
Martin looked at her.
Serena nodded. “Bring them in.”
At 7:31, twelve names entered the call, none of them introduced twice.
The next forty-eight hours stopped belonging to Julian.