"Then they've tipped their hand about knowing we're onto them," Ryke said, "and we file that immediately with the council as evidence of bad faith in business dealings."
The room was quiet.
Mitch ran through the architecture. Built it in real time. Checked it against the seventeen responses he'd prepared. Found that none of them had anticipated this specific play but that the core principle of one of them — *if the approach is legitimate on the surface, use the surface to get underneath* — applied directly.
"Yes," he said.
"Yes?" Neva said.
"It's the correct move." He picked up his phone. "I need forty-five minutes to build the acceptance language. The letter has to be warm enough to encourage them to over-share in the pitch but cautious enough not to constitute a binding commitment."
