The morning after felt like the pause between lightning and thunder that fragile, trembling breath before everything changes again.

Violet hadn’t slept. The file Hanley died protecting lay open on the coffee table, its pages rippling slightly from the wind leaking through the half open balcony door. Bryan sat opposite her, one hand in his hair, his shirt still stained from the chaos at St. Adelaide.

Neither of them spoke for a long time. The city outside was awake, but their world had gone eerily still.

Finally, Violet broke the silence. “They knew everything, Bryan. Every hospital plan, every research grant, every dollar that came through my father’s company Marlowe’s...