Page 175 of The Contract

“What am I talking about?” He barks out a harsh, humorless laugh. “You tell me, Wolfe! Because your entire goddamn deal just got leaked to the press. Every single fucking detail—the merger, the financials, the development plans, the legal filings. All of it.”

My pulse slams into my ribs.

No.

That’s not possible.

I push off the table, pacing now, my jaw locked so tight it aches. “That’s impossible.”

“Oh, is it?” Calloway bites out. “Then maybe you should check the New York Times, because that’s exactly where it is. Front. Fucking. Page.”

I whip my head toward Marcus, who’s already moving, pulling up his phone, his face set in grim lines.

“Every goddamn executive board member is calling me,” Calloway continues, his voice a lethal growl. “The press is salivating over this. Do you have any idea how catastrophic this is?”

I do.

I fucking do.

Confidentiality is the backbone of a merger this size. Any breach—especially one this massive—would destroy everything.

This isn’t just an inconvenience.

It’s a fucking nuclear bomb.

I shove a hand through my hair, gripping the back of my neck. “We didn’t authorize this. We have no leaks internally?—”

Calloway scoffs, the sound biting through me like a blade. “No leaks?” His voice is pure disbelief. “Then tell me, how the fuck did the New York Times get a copy of the commissioner’s email?”

The words slam into me, knocking the air from my lungs.

“What?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb, Wolfe.” His voice is laced with disgust. “The email, the soil surveys—the ones you conveniently didn’t tell me about. The same ones that put half the development sites in question and could tank this entire fucking deal. You sat on that information. And now the entire world knows about it before I did.”

Fuck.

My grip tightens, fingers digging into my scalp as I pace, my mind scrambling.

That email came in the night of the ballgame. Marcus and I were still working through the details. We hadn’t told Calloway yet because we were handling it.

And now…

Someone leaked it.

And it makes me look exactly like the corrupt piece of shit Adrian painted me to be.

Calloway exhales sharply, his patience shredded. “You kept critical information from me, and now it’s out in the open. What the fuck am I supposed to think?”

“This wasn’t us,” I grit out, barely keeping my temper in check. “We wouldn’t leak our own deal.”

Calloway scoffs again, the sound cutting. “That’s exactly what a desperate man would do, wouldn’t he? Someone trying to get ahead of a problem before it collapses under him.”

Jesus Christ.

Adrian played this perfectly.

He knew about the soil surveys before Calloway did.

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