a Vanc

Charles River smelled of

sachusetts air, hauling my canvas bag onto my sho

ehind the red-brick facades of Cambridge and Beacon Hill, people cared

d belonged to my late mother, purchased with her life insurance policy and maintained under a private fa

door, dropped my bags in the entryway, and immediatel

en and navigated to an encrypted p

training centers, I had accumulated substantial reserves. Declan had assumed I lived

ollars into a newly formed corporate account u

as ste

tford estate from my skin until my collarbones turned red. I pulled on an oversized kn

ay beside

sking if I had arrived safely. In their minds, I was an a

ar shared with the New Yo

iculous biometric logs, heart-rate variability charts, and cus

"Manage Pe

"Delete Shared Access" and

could have them. But I was no longer keep

opened I

he Titans' executive boardroom, smiling over architectural renderings of a new recover

llow.' Then I

to the Hartford dynasty

nged on my

ways too small for a mind like yours. I have already contacted Julian Beaumont's legal team an

ine smile tou

ue. The air was filled with students carrying heavy backpacks between Widener Libra

dough bread. Back in the apartment, I cooked a

balcony overlooking the dark waters of the Charles. The ligh

Connell, my best partner and friend, the one person who had always looked at me

one answered, laced with that quiet, careful edge

Connell

d quietly. "I

n the other end, then a stretched silence

team's media office this morning, and none of it makes sense." His voice had dropped

ld him, gripping the iron ra

Then, quietly, almost as if the words escaped before he could stop them: "