The box creaked open.
Kent peeled back the black tissue paper, brows furrowing as he pulled out a thick cream folder—expensive, heavy, the kind used for legal documents.
“What the hell is this?” he muttered, flipping it open.
Cillian snatched it from his hands.
Inside were photographs. Dozens of them. Some grainy, some surveillance-sharp.
At first, all he registered were the scenes—Sylvester outside a courthouse in Midtown, shaking hands with an unfamiliar woman at the federal building, entering a gated estate in Redwood. Then another—blurry, but unmistakable. Sylvester inside a prison visitation room. Sitting across from someone whose face had been deliberately obscured.
But Cillian didn’t need clarity.
Ben.
His heart stuttered.
He turned the page.
A dossier followed. Crisp font. Dry facts. But each line hit like a gut punch.
Subject: Sylvester St. James (also known as S. St. James, Syl St. James)
• Former Senior Counsel at Hamilton & Blake LLP, ranked in top 5 national law firms. Re
