The address Reginald found for Sienna Okafor led to a narrow shopfront on a street Kellan barely recognized, sandwiched between a shuttered pharmacy and a nail salon with half its sign burned out. A hand-lettered notice taped inside the glass door read Okafor Textiles, Est. Somewhere Better Than This, the kind of tired, defiant joke a person makes when they've stopped waiting for anyone to laugh with them.He stood outside for a moment before going in, the flash drive Elena had given him still sitting heavy in his coat pocket, and thought about how strange it was to be nervous about walking into a small shop when he'd just walked out of a driveway where his own brother had promised him a war.A bell above the door announced him. A woman looked up from behind a sewing machine, mid-thirties, tired in the particular way of someone who'd been tired for years rather than days, and something in her face went instantly, carefully neutral, the practiced blankness of a person used to stranger

Kellan stared at the three words on the screen until they stopped looking like language at all, just shapes, just letters arranged in an order too enormous to process standing in a hallway with his brother's study door still swinging faintly on its hinges."Who's alive?" Marcus asked, looking between the phone and Kellan's face. "Kellan, who is Reginald talking about?""Not now," Kellan said, already dialing, already moving toward the front door, Vivian falling into step beside him without being asked.Reginald answered on the first ring, voice tight with something Kellan had never heard in him before, real, unguarded urgency. "Sir, I need you to come to the office immediately. This isn't something I can explain properly over the phone.""Tell me now, Reginald."A pause, the particular hesitation of a careful man deciding how much a person can absorb standing in a driveway at midnight. "The hospital transfer record listed a receiving facility. I tracked it. The child, your sister, sir

Kellan was on his feet before Vivian finished speaking, phone pressed hard against his ear, his eyes already moving to the small, cramped bedroom where Mei sat holding her father's hand."How long ago did he find out?" Kellan asked, keeping his voice low, steady, though his pulse was hammering."I don't know exactly. Long enough that he already has people watching the apartment." Vivian's voice cracked slightly. "Kellan, I heard him say he wants to know exactly what she knows, and how fast. I don't know what that means, but it didn't sound like a conversation. It sounded like a plan.""It's alright. Thank you for telling me." He hesitated, aware of the Chen family watching him now with fresh alarm, aware that whatever calm he'd managed to project walking into their home minutes ago was about to evaporate entirely. "Vivian, be careful tonight. If he suspects you overheard that much, don't give him any more reason to watch you too closely.""I'm not worried about myself," she said. "I'm

Kellan's grip tightened on the phone. "What do you need me to do?""There's a board meeting Thursday morning," Elena said. "The Kestrel vote. Elias has spent weeks making sure every member owes him something, favors, debts, quiet threats dressed up as business courtesy. He's confident it will pass unanimously." A pause, the hum of the car engine steady beneath her voice. "I need you there, Kellan. Publicly. Not sneaking in through side doors and flash drives. I need you standing in that room when the vote happens, because it's the only place left where twenty years of his careful control can be undone in front of witnesses who can't simply be paid to forget what they saw.""Elias will never let me into that room.""He won't have a choice," Elena said. "Sebastian's estate still holds a minority stake in three companies feeding directly into the Kestrel deal, stakes Elias assumed were dormant because no one from your side of the family had claimed them in over a decade. As the sole surv

Kellan was already running for the car before he'd finished reading the message twice, Vivian on her feet beside him, her earlier grief replaced instantly by sharp, focused fear."What is it?""The Chens." Kellan's hands weren't steady on the wheel as they pulled away from the curb, Reginald's words repeating in his mind on a terrible loop. Blood on the floor. "Someone got into the estate. Their room is empty.""How? You have security, gates, cameras—""I don't know yet." Kellan's knuckles had gone white against the steering wheel. "Reginald wouldn't have sent that message unless it was serious. He doesn't panic. He's the most composed person I've ever met, and he sent that in all capital letters."Vivian said nothing to that, but her hand found his on the console, and neither of them pulled away.The drive back to the estate stretched into an eternity of red lights and clenched silence. Kellan's mind kept circling back to Mei's face the night before, exhausted but hopeful, finally be