ETHAN'S POV
The rain hadn't let up since dawn.
Thin streams traced paths down the windows of the study, blurring the skyline as if even the city couldn't bear the weight of what we were uncovering.
Carl's files lay open across the long mahogany table, their contents sprawled like the bones of an old ghost finally disturbed.
I sat motionless, my eyes pinned to the words that tied my name to deeds I never signed and decisions I never made.
Silent echoes of a past that had been rewritten under my nose.
Ava entered, her hair still damp from her call earlier, a tablet in hand.
She looked exhausted, but there was clarity in her eyes, a fierce kind of peace that came from knowing, no matter how terrible, the truth at last.
"It's worse than we thought," she said, sliding the tablet toward me. "Carl wasn't acting alone."
