Seven Days

Chapter 056: Seven Days By Thursday afternoon, Leah had read the same NexGen sentence four times and trusted it less each time. The Phase III summary for NX-4012 sat on the Midtown Public Library table between SEC filings and a scratched plastic ruler someone had abandoned beside the printers. The trial results were too clean. Site variance too low. Dropout explanations too neat. She was not a scientist, which was exactly the problem: she could smell the lie but could not prove it without turning to someone inside Megan's family circle. Eight days before the gala, with Kerrigan moving too slowly and Martha's vote closing in, Leah wrote Sofia's name and felt the cost of using it. Sebastian Costa's NexGen acquisition was the conspiracy's brightest public surface. He wanted investors, donors, and Martha's board to see a young executive making a brilliant pharmaceutical play. If the acquisition price rested on inflated clinical data, that brilliance became exposure. A challenge to the data would not destroy him overnight. It could, however, unsettle the investors around him, complicate the financing, and make the Foundation money trail look less like old bookkeeping and more like fuel for fraud. The Meridian wire was a weapon, but one transaction could be isolated. NexGen was a door into Sebastian's ambition. Leah needed both. She opened the Moleskine and wrote a compact plan instead of the softer language her conscience wanted: First Strike Planning, Sebastian Costa. Target, NexGen Therapeutics acquisition. Method, challenge the clinical-trial data supporting valuation. Source, Sofia, if reachable without forcing her. Risk, Sofia is Megan's cousin. The last line looked too small for the damage it might do. Sofia was not a source on a map. She was the woman who had introduced Leah to Constance, who had vouched for her access to a winter gala ticket, who trusted Megan enough to be pulled into Megan's life without armor. Using Sofia meant deepening the deception around the only friend Leah had in New York. Leah capped the pen and stared at the filings until the numbers blurred. There were other ways to challenge Sebastian: SEC disclosures, investor chatter, public acquisition timelines. None of those could tell her whether NX-4012's clean data was merely impressive or manufactured. Sofia could read clinical submissions the way Kevin read ledgers. Sofia could find the seam if Leah asked well, if Sofia did not ask why, if Megan never found out Leah had turned one more person she loved into a path. On Friday evening, Megan was late. Leah waited at their corner table in the coffee shop on Lexington and 86th, the one with the good light and service indifferent enough to let two women sit too long over cooling drinks. Megan was supposed to meet her at 7:30. At 7:48 the empty chair across from Leah had become an accusation. Megan was never late, and Leah had learned to fear changes in ordinary habits. When Megan finally pushed through the door, she carried a garment bag over one arm and wore an expression Leah had never seen on her: excitement, anxiety, and something close to grief struggling for the same space. "I got the dress," Megan said, dropping the bag onto the empty chair. "Constance came through. Actual seats. Table forty-seven. Not standing room, not overflow. Real seats." "That's good." "It's a good table. Center of the main hall. We'll see everything." Leah reached for the safe answer and stopped. Megan's hands were wrapped too tightly around the strap of the garment bag. Her eyes were bright in a way that had nothing to do with victory. "Megan. What's wrong?" Megan sat. She did not take off her coat. "I talked to Sofia." The name landed with the force of a drawer slamming shut. Leah kept her face still. "About what?" "About you." Megan looked up then, and there was no softness left for Leah to hide inside. "I asked what she really thought, not the polite version. She said you were the most secretive person she'd ever met. She said she introduced you to Constance for tickets and you barely spoke to Constance afterward. She said you asked about Chesapeake's shell companies once, then disappeared from the subject as soon as you got what you needed." Leah said nothing. Denial would be insulting. Explanation would be dangerous. "And I realized she was right," Megan said. "You do that. You ask me about Ethan Hunt, and once I find him, you never mention him. You ask me about the Metropolitan Club, and after we go, you close that door too. You ask about gala tickets, and once I get them, I'm supposed to smile and pretend I'm not being used?" "I hear you." "Do you?" Megan's voice cracked, and several people turned before pretending not to listen. "Because I don't think you do. I think you see me as a resource. A convenient way into rooms you couldn't enter alone. A ticket. A cover story." "Stop." The word came out too hard. Leah saw Megan flinch and hated herself for it. She lowered her voice. "You are not a resource. You are not a ticket. You are the only friend I have in this city, and I have not forgotten that for one second." "Then tell me why." Megan's eyes shone, not with tears exactly but with the effort of holding them back. "Tell me why you care about the Thorne family. Tell me why you came to L'Etoile two years ago with a fake name and a scar on your face and that look like someone had taken everything from you." Leah looked at the garment bag. Red fabric showed through the clear plastic: a gala dress chosen with hope by a woman who deserved honesty and had been paid in fragments. Leah could not give her Isabella. Not yet. But giving nothing had become its own betrayal. "I can't tell you everything," Leah said. "But I can tell you this. The Thorne family hurt someone I love. Someone who can't fight back. I'm going to make them answer for it." Megan absorbed that as if Leah had handed her a cup too hot to hold. "Someone you love?" "Yes." "Who?" Leah held her gaze. Richard's face came first, then Catherine's, then the version of Isabella who had died in the newspaper and kept walking anyway. "Someone who is still alive. Someone who doesn't know the full truth yet. I need to finish what I started before I can explain." Megan stared at her for a long time. Then she picked up her coffee, took a sip, and set it down with deliberate care. "That's not enough." "I know." "But it's more than you've given me before." The small mercy almost undid Leah. Megan touched the garment bag. "The dress is red. Constance helped me pick it. She said I look like I belong at a gala." Her attempted smile broke in the middle. "Do I?" "You look like you belong everywhere." "That's a nice thing to say to someone you're using." "I'm not using you." "You are." Megan's voice was tired now, which hurt more than anger. "But I'm choosing to let you. Seven days. After the gala, you and I sit down, and you tell me the rest. Whatever the rest is. Deal?" There were promises Leah could not safely make. This was not one of them. "Deal." Megan stood and lifted the garment bag. At the door, she paused without turning fully around. "Wear your hair down at the gala. The scar will be less visible." Then she was gone, leaving Leah with two coffees, one empty chair, and a debt no evidence file could pay. Leah stayed until the server began stacking chairs near the window. In the Moleskine she wrote the sentence because not writing it would be cowardice: Megan's loyalty is a thread I am pulling too hard. Seven days until the gala. Seven days until answers. Under it she wrote the harder thing: Ask Sofia anyway. The next morning, at 8:03, Sofia's text arrived with no greeting and no warmth: Come over. I have something to show you.