"I've written it all out," Trent said, sliding a carefully prepared statement across the conference table, his voice steady despite the visible effort the admission had clearly cost him. "Everything. The mentorship, exactly what Holt taught me, exactly how I applied it against Sterling. I don't want to leave anything out this time, not even the parts that make me look considerably worse than I've let myself admit to anyone."

The legal team reviewed the statement carefully, and Ivy watched something shift in the room's collective expression as they read through it, Trent's account considerably more thorough and self-implicating than anyone had expected.

"This is going to be difficult testimony,"...