Amara didn’t sleep.

Not because of fear — fear was too loud, too obvious — but because her mind refused to settle. It kept circling the same truth from different angles, testing it, sharpening it, stripping it of sentiment.

Lana wasn’t reacting anymore.

She was executing.

That realization changed everything.

Amara sat at her desk as the city darkened beyond the glass, the folder Ethan had given her spread open in neat, damning order. Corporate structures mapped like arteries. Names she recognized threaded through unfamiliar entities. Money moved with elegant precision — not sloppy, not desperate.

Calculated.

Lana had never been reckless. She had always been patient.

Amara traced a...