For the love of God, tell me something I don’t already know!” I rage, slamming my open palms down on the conference room table. The water glasses tremble almost as hard as my management team. I don’t care that I’m scaring the shit out of them. They deserve a lot fucking worse.

“We’re going back through the logs right now.” Ryland holds up his phone.

I see messages pouring in as the tech staff scramble to find the rat in our organization. “Yeah, too little, too late,” I mutter. That sick, sweaty feeling is starting to work its paralyzing poison into every cell in my body. In two weeks, we’re supposed to showcase our latest innovation in drone technology. Everything is ready, the press, the industry experts, the buyers, the government agencies, but my arch rival, Vince fucking Weissman stole our design and passed it off as his brainchild last night.

I loosen my tie. Hell, I can’t even think straight. I take a deep breath and try to calm myself. This must be how people react when they find out all their years of slaving away have come to nothing. Jesus, everything we’ve worked for in the last three years—gone.

Millions of dollars’ worth of research—flushed down the toilet.

My stomach twists with raw hate when I remember Weissman’s smug smile, as he passed me in the hotel lobby last night. I was dying to wipe that grin off his arrogant face, but there was not a thing I could do to him. I had to nod politely, as if I wouldn’t love to see him burn in hell, and move on.

“I’m sure they’ll find something,” Ryland soothes.

My head jerks up and I glare at him. “I hire the most talented people I can find, make them jump through about as many security hoops as candidates for the CIA do, get them to sign watertight contracts, and all for what?”  

“Look, as soon as we know who stole the plans—”

“We already know who stole them,” I snarl, and pushing myself out of my chair, I start walking away. There’s a real danger I might launch myself across the table and strangle him. He’s my best friend and we go a long way back, but fuck him for being so calm and reasonable while my whole life is falling apart.

I stare out of the window.

The bleak, rainy skyline is depressing, but even if the day were bright and sunny and full of unicorns sliding down fucking rainbows, it wouldn’t help one bit. It’s a waking nightmare. Behind me, the silence is so perfect you can hear a pin drop.

I turn around my eyes focusing on Laura Greenwell, the leader of my legal team. “Can we sue this fucker?”

She wants to say yes. She really does. I can tell by the way she presses her lips together and drums her fingernails restlessly on the table. “Weissman makes my blood boil, his methods have always been as unethical as sin—”

“Unethical? He outright stole our design!” I roar, barely able to hear myself think over the raging fury going on in my head.

She nods. “Yes. Yes, he did. He outright stole your design, but from a strictly legal standpoint, the patent on your drone is still pending, so Weissman Technologies had just as much right as anybody else to launch a demo last night. I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you something different, but we have no grounds to take him to court.”

Lou’s my chief of security who has been ominously quiet up to this point—probably because he is wondering if the leak occurred on his watch— speaks up for the first time, “What about an injunction?”

Laura shakes her head regretfully. “I mean, we could.” She looks at me. “That’s your call, naturally, but it will take weeks and—”

“—we have no way to prove that he stole it,” I finish with an ever-sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “It’ll be our word against theirs as to who stole the plans from whom. Scandal, mudslinging. Either we stand up for ourselves and look like a bunch of crybaby thieves, or we roll over like whipped dogs and let them pick up every damned contract that is rightfully ours to score.”

“So what do we do now, boss?” Mark, my sales manager asks.

They’re looking at me for the answers because I am the boss, the guy who’s supposed to come up with the solutions. I turn away from them and stare unseeing out of the window. As a kid, my mother told me a story she read in the Reader’s Digest. It was about this young woman who had spent all day cooking a turkey. A man she wanted to impress was coming to dinner. They had drinks, canapes and everything was going really well. Finally, it was time for the main course, the piece de résistance, the thing the young woman had worked on all day long.

Proudly, she carried in the perfectly done bird on a large tray. There were gasps of admiration from the assembled guests. As she crossed the threshold though, her shoe caught on the carpet. The tray jerked out of her hands. The turkey went flying across the room and landed on the floor.

There was a shocked silence in the room.

For a few shocked seconds nobody moved. The young woman was ready burst into tears. She couldn’t believe her luck. All her hard work slaving in the hot kitchen had come to nothing. Then the girl’s mother spoke up, “It’s okay, darling. Throw this turkey away and serve the other one you roasted.”

I turn around and look decisively at my management team, making sure to meet each member’s eyes for emphasis. “We won’t cancel the upcoming demo. We’ll show them the other drone.”

Ryland frowns. “What other drone?”

“The one Sam and her team are working on.”

His jaw drops. “What are you talking about, Lincoln? That drone is months away from ready. It’s has a major kink, remember? It can’t pass the seven minutes mark without frying up its circuits. It’ll never be ready in two weeks.”

“Yes, it fucking will. It will, if I have to work twenty-four-seven myself,” I growl.

“What about the rat?” Lou asks. “If we don’t pin down exactly who took the plans and handed them over to the enemy, even the design for the second drone are in danger of falling into Weissman’s hands.

“Oh, don’t you worry. We’ll find them, and I’ll deal with them personally,” I say softly.

“Mr. Cage?” Erica’s voice rings through the room, via the speaker on the phone in the center of the table.

“What?” I demand, yanking the receiver from the base to keep the conversation between the two of us.

“I’m sorry, sir, but—”

“Which part of do not disturb me under any circumstances did you not understand?” I snap with irritation.

“I know, sir, but…” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Your…ex-wife is here.”