CHAPTER 65

Outside the Courthouse – 11:47 AM

The October sun cast long shadows across the courthouse steps, but none as dark as the black Mercedes sedan idling at the curb. Its engine purred like a waiting predator, patient and menacing against the backdrop of victory cheers and reporter questions that followed us from the building. I kept my eyes forward, chin high—the pose I'd perfected for cameras since taking over Lane International—but I felt the weight of that car's presence like a physical touch.

Griffin's fingers tightened around mine, his sixteen-year-old hand now nearly as large as my own. He'd grown so much in the two years since choosing to leave his father's house. The transformation from the withdrawn, frightened boy who'd appeared at my door with a duffel bag and his coding manuals to this tall, observant young man still amazed me. But now I felt his composure waver, sensed the childhood fears resurface as the sedan's tinted window rolled down another inch—just enough to reveal