Without trying to make this sound trivial, have you simply considered ignoring both individuals? You have a senior in the team that has a fair idea of what nee

Without trying to make this sound trivial, have you simply considered ignoring both individuals? You have a senior in the team that has a fair idea of what needs to be done. You know the problems. You know that working on this side project, in secret, is wrong; so why not agree at every meeting, discussion, etc that you will work on it, and then simply do whatever needs to be done. It is risky, as the manager will then likely try to fire you; but that's going to be difficult to sell: - At every point you've followed directions given in verbal conversations - If there's stuff in email, you simply agree to that as well - said manager is then documenting their own failure - You are delivering what the strategic parts of the business believe are the right thing - He'll justify trying to fire you... by revealing his secret project - All hell will break loose, and at the end of the day if you were demonstrably protecting revenue and following the overall strategic intent of the organistion, you'll just be treated as a dilligent cog in the machine. Directly raising it or confronting the issue is likely to make you appear argumentative or a "trouble maker". It doesn't matter if you are right, once it gets past a certain point, non-experts have no clue what's going on and rely on relationships, tone of conversation, and the amount of trust they feel. However, if you look harmless - nay, even too stupid to have done the wrong thing(!), you can likely let it wash over you and the team. Alternatively, just all take your sick leave at one time, due to "stress caused by long hours working on SECRET PROJECT NAME", cc HR. :P