"Hello, everyone."

Adrian Ganner said it once, and the steps in front of Ganner Corp went quiet.

The street behind the reporters was not quiet. Camera drones hung in rows above the barriers, police vehicles sat with their lights turning, and a crowd pressed against the line and shouted things that did not reach the microphones. Every banner along the bottom of every feed still cycled the same clips — the Ashford Grand coming down, Langford falling, James being walked to a transport in heavy restraints, the man who owned Ganner Corp dragged out with his ruined leg.

Adrian stood under the lights in a suit without a crease in it, the company logo glowing on the wall behind him.

He set his hands on the podium and began.

"Ganner Corp is shocked by what the country watched last night," he said. "We mourn the people who died at the Ashford Grand. Their families have our deepest sympathy, and they will have more than sympathy before this is over. We support the Bureau’s investigation completely, and we will hold nothing back from it."

He paused.

"I also have to address my father."

The cameras pushed in.

"What was shown on that stream was not Ganner Corp," Adrian said. "It was one man, acting on his own, outside every channel and every approval this company runs on. The board did not know. I did not know. Whatever my father involved himself in, he did it as a private individual, not as an officer of this company."

His voice did not change on the word father.

"As of this morning, my father has been removed from all executive authority, pending the outcome of the investigation. He no longer speaks for Ganner Corp. He no longer has any role in it."

He said it like a business decision.

The questions came all at once.

"Mr Ganner — was Ganner Corp equipment used in the Ashford Grand operation?"

"What is your company’s relationship with the UK Tower delegation?"

"Did Ganner Corp have any part in the attempted abduction of James Ganner’s mother—"

"One at a time." Adrian raised a hand, calm. "I’ll take what I can."

He chose.

"Ganner Corp supplies licensed equipment to registered contractors across this country and beyond. If any of that equipment was used unlawfully last night, that is a crime committed by the user, and our distribution records are already being pulled and handed to the Bureau. Any illegal use of our products will be reported by us, not hidden by us."

"That’s not an answer on the abduction—"

"It’s the answer I have," Adrian said, and moved his eyes to the next raised hand.

A woman near the middle did not lower hers.

"Caoimhe Brennan, Tower Industry Review." She did not wait to be picked. "On the stream, your father and the UK delegate discussed a prototype weapon. Built by Ganner Corp. For England. Was that weapon meant to counter Ireland’s Tower position, or to force James Ganner into foreign custody?"

A few reporters lowered their phones and looked straight at him.

Adrian did not flinch, and he did not say no.

"Ganner Corp has lawful clients across Europe," he said. "We hold contracts that are reviewed and approved under export-controlled compliance, like every industrial firm of our size. I’m not going to discuss the terms of any specific contract from a podium, and I’d be breaking the law if I did."

"That isn’t a denial," Brennan said.

"It’s a compliance answer to a compliance question."

Brennan kept looking at him.

No denial came.

@towerclips: he said EVERYTHING except "no." rewatch it. he never says no

@CrownAndCountry: A royal aide is DEAD. why is everyone interrogating the company

@dublin_mam_of_3: because the company built the weapon they were bragging about ON STREAM??

@just_here_lurking: "compliance answer to a compliance question" is the most guilty sentence i’ve ever heard

Adrian did not wait for the next question.

"I want to be clear about something," he said, and his voice cooled. "I understand that James Ganner has a story people feel for. I understand his family was touched by this. But no private pain justifies what happened inside the Ashford Grand."

"Civilians died. A public building was destroyed. Human dead were raised on Irish soil, in front of children watching at home. And a man was killed, live, on a stream. Ganner Corp believes in lawful process. We do not believe in vengeance, no matter how sympathetic the person holding the blade."

No reporter cut in that time.

The next question came from the back.

"Should James Ganner be allowed to walk free after this?"

The feeds split before he finished speaking.

On the national channels, the anchors stayed careful.

"—Ganner Corp distancing itself entirely from its own chairman tonight, while declining to directly answer questions about the alleged prototype weapon—"

The English-aligned feeds did not.

"—a dead royal aide, a destroyed hotel, and a government that cannot control its own Challengers. Ireland is unstable, and tonight proved it—"

The Tower analysts kept replaying the same ten seconds.

"—he is using the word vengeance, but watch the delegate again. Full Paladin armament. Combat arts. The boy did not start that—"

And the comment feeds churned.

@redbrick_ronan: they’re sacrificing the dad to save the brand. textbook

@CrownAndCountry: he raised CORPSES. i don’t care what his sob story is

@dublin_mam_of_3: they went after his MOTHER. what would you do. say it to my face

@floorclearfan: nobody upstairs in that hotel chose to be there. that’s all i’ll say

By the time Adrian reached for the next question, the same ten seconds of footage was being used to prove three different stories.

Then a reporter at the front asked something else.

"Mr Ganner." He was older, steady, and he did not shout. "Seven years ago, James Ganner’s father died on Floor 18. After he died, the Tower Credit payout and the life insurance owed to James and his mother ended up with the Ganner family instead. Did this family, or this company, take that boy’s inheritance?"

For half a second, Adrian Ganner stopped.

It was small. A breath where there should not have been one. But the drones were close, and the cameras caught it, and it went out live to everyone watching.

Then his face settled again.

"That matter was settled years ago," he said. "I won’t be drawn into a private family dispute during a national crisis."

The steps erupted.

He had not said false.

He had not said it never happened.

He had said settled. The reporters heard it.

At the Bureau, O’Shea was watching the same feed.

Niamh stood at his shoulder with a tablet, already sorting documents pulled out of the morning’s freeze and the board investigation.

When Adrian said settled years ago, O’Shea sat forward.

"There it is," he said.

"There what is?"

"Run it back. Listen to the word he used." O’Shea did not take his eyes off the screen. "Not ’that’s false.’ Not ’that never happened.’ Settled. You don’t settle something that didn’t happen."

He turned to her.

"Pull everything from the year his father died. The Tower death payout. The insurance settlement. The estate transfer. Every Tower Credit that moved out of those accounts and wherever it landed. And then pull Ganner Corp’s own books from the same year, because I want to know if a single credit of a dead Challenger’s payout ever touched a company account."

Niamh’s fingers stopped over the tablet.

"If the money moved through the company," she said slowly, "it stops being a family theft."

"It becomes a corporate one. With records." O’Shea kept his eyes on the screen. "He tried to close that door on live television. Now I know which door to open."

"On it."

In containment, they played James a piece of it.

He sat in the restraint chair with his bound hands in his lap.

An officer angled a small screen toward him. O’Shea stood near the door. Niamh waited just outside it.

He heard Adrian cut his father loose. He heard the company say it had known nothing. He heard that matter was settled years ago.

James stilled.

He didn’t shout, and he didn’t pull against the restraints. Nothing moved in his face. The cuffs had been ticking softly against the arm of the chair the whole time the screen played, and now, all at once, they went quiet.

Seven years ago his father had died on Floor 18. Before the accounts had even cooled, the family had emptied everything owed to him and his mother and walked away calling it theirs.

Now Adrian stood under the lights in a suit without a crease, calling it settled.

He looked up at O’Shea.

"Can you get the old records?"

"They’re already being pulled," O’Shea said.

James held his eyes for a moment, then nodded once and looked back at the floor.

That was all he said.

Back on the steps, Adrian raised his hand again.

"Before I go," he said, "Ganner Corp will be establishing a compensation fund for everyone harmed at the Ashford Grand. We will cooperate fully with the authorities. And we will appoint an independent review panel to examine every claim made on that stream."

A few reporters started writing before he finished the sentence.

No one asked who would choose the panel.

"Thank you all," Adrian said, and stepped back from the podium.

"Mr Ganner — the weapon—"

"Mr Ganner, the inheritance—"

He did not return. Security folded in around him, the flashes chased him up the steps, the questions kept coming, and he walked through all of it without turning his head once.

Inside, past the doors, the secure lift closed and the noise of the street cut off.

Adrian’s smile disappeared.

"How long can we keep the inheritance files sealed?" Adrian asked the two lawyers beside him.

"Depends how hard the Bureau pushes. Days. Maybe a week if we contest the access."

"And can my father’s personal accounts carry all of it? If it has to land on someone, can it land on him alone?"

"On paper, mostly. There are seams."

"Then we close the seams."

One of the lawyers hesitated. "Sir — O’Shea’s already frozen travel. The talk is he’s pulling historic records too. Going back years."

Adrian did not raise his voice. He watched the floor numbers climb.

"Then move whatever can still be moved tonight," he said. "Isolate my father. Completely. He talks to no one, and nothing connects to him that connects to the company."

"And start drafting a second statement."

"If the inheritance story gets out, we don’t defend it."

One lawyer looked up. "Then what do we lead with?"

Adrian looked at the screen in the lift. James stood in the ruined car park with the black scythe in his hand.

"Public safety," he said.

No one answered.

"Old money makes people angry. Fear makes them quiet."

The lift slowed.

On the small screen set into the wall, the feed was replaying again — James in the dark car park, the broken scythe changing in his hands.

Adrian looked at it for a moment.

"This company has survived worse than one angry boy," he said.

The doors opened, and he stepped out.