The photos loaded one at a time, each one landing like a separate blow. Rhys holding a door open for a stranger. That same woman laughing at something he’d said, her hand resting against his arm like she’d done it a hundred times before. His palm settling low against her back as they crossed the street together, easy, familiar, nothing hesitant about it at all.Anna sat frozen on her bed, phone trembling slightly in her grip, something cracking open in her chest that she didn’t have a name for yet.She called Alisha back before she’d even finished processing what she was looking at.“Who is she.” Anna’s voice came out thin, stripped of its usual composure.“I was hoping you wouldn’t ask me that.” Alisha said, letting the pause stretch just long enough to feel reluctant. “I didn’t want to be the one to tell you.”“You’re the one who sent the photos.”“Because I care about you, Anna. More than you probably realize, given everything that’s happened between our families.” A pause, soft an

The Halverson building had never looked like this before. Floodlights swept up the glass facade in slow, deliberate arcs, turning the entire tower into something closer to a lit monument than an office building. A red carpet unspooled from the curb all the way to the revolving doors, flanked on either side by security dressed sharp enough to pass for guests themselves.Cars rolled up in a steady, glittering procession, each one disgorging guests dressed like they’d raided the vaults of old money and new power alike. Cameras flashed from a roped-off press line, reporters shouting questions nobody bothered answering, all of them hungry for a first real look at the company that had quietly owned half the city for decades without anyone noticing.“I didn’t know they had this much money.” Someone murmured near the entrance, awestruck, watching a string quartet set up beneath a chandelier the size of a small car. “I thought Halverson was just, I don’t know. Infrastructure. Boring stuff.”“A