I spent years in HR, buried in the private secrets people thought they'd locked away. I saw the affairs, the spiralling debts, the warnings they prayed would vanish. I never touched any of it until Sophie Harland arrived. Her name was a bruise I remembered from another branch, a complaint she'd made that mysteriously died in the dark. I went into her archive. I read every line. I studied her fear before I ever spoke. And when I finally approached, I let her know, gently, that I knew the parts of her she hoped were forgotten. She stiffened, terrified. I used that. I pressed. It felt like ownership.