[POV: Sofia Lanka]

"Get your hands off me! I am not a trespasser, and I am certainly not leaving this room until my husband looks me in the eye and tells me he truly believes this lie!"

Sofia Lanka’s voice cracked like a whip in the sterile silence of the executive hospital suite. She twisted her arm out of the grip of a security guard whose face she recognized from a dozen family barbecues, a man who now looked at her with nothing but cold, professional indifference. The air in the room felt heavy, charged with the scent of lilies and the sharp, metallic tang of an empire being dismantled....