Prologue

“Vaughn. Leilani Amara Vaughn.”

The name echoed like it belonged to a ghost, bouncing off the concrete and metal walls that had held her for more than ten years.

But the ghost stood up.

Pale. Scarred. Wearing goodwill jeans two sizes too big and a sweater that swallowed her whole. The wounds ran deeper than skin buried in places the mirror no longer recognized.

The property officer—a woman with beady eyes and a face carved permanently into boredom—read from Leilani’s inventory list in a flat, monotone drone. The exhaustion of the job clung to her like lint.

Leilani could hardly believe it. After twelve years, the day she would see the world again had actually arrived.

Another version of her might have cried.

The Leilani from before would have let her eyes brim and spill over.

But Leilani’s rose-colored glasses had been shattered by the American justice system.

A white plastic bag was tossed onto the rickety iron table with careless disinterest. Her entire life—twelve years of it compressed into one plastic tote.

Her calloused hands, chipped nails, and faded scars touched the bag with something like reverence before lifting it.

Then she saw them.

Buried at the bottom.

A pair of pointe shoes—stiff, yellowed with time.

And a silver pendant shaped like wings.

Her breath left her in one clean, brutal sweep.

It was funny, in a cruel way:

They let you keep the things that still had the power to break you.

She closed the bag with trembling hands, heartbeat racing, sweat beading along her brow. None of the uniformed employees noticed. Or cared.

“Try not to kill another person, miss ballerina,” the officer muttered.

Leilani didn’t react.

She’d learned long ago that silence was safer than truth.

******

Lennon Patterson Jr. adjusted his glasses for the fifth time in three minutes.

The cold, domineering office seemed to shrink around him, even though he’d faced far worse situations with actual criminals.

But the man seated at the head of the table, calm, still on the phone, was everything but a criminal.

Declan Partridge controlled thousands with nothing but his lean, cord-tight body and a “yes” or “no” more lethal than the harshest sentence Lennon had ever heard in court.

“I had an arrangement with your father,” Declan said at last.

Apparently, the call had ended. Lennon hadn’t even noticed.

Decades of prep schools and Ivy League conditioning forced a little steel into his spine. He cleared his throat. Once. Then again.

“It wasn’t to my knowledge when I took over the firm,” he began in his trained courtroom voice. “And up until now, I still have no idea what the arrangement was about.”

The door opened.

Andrew Linton entered, tweed suit crisp as always. He placed a manila folder on the glass table in front of Lennon. His nervousness was visible to trained eyes.

If Declan noticed the tremor in his assistant, he gave no sign.

Declan rose from behind his desk, six-foot-three of controlled dominance, and walked toward the towering glass wall. The city stretched below him, a colony of moving, insignificant dots. A king watches his subjects scurry.

His suit jacket lay tossed across the sofa. His crisp white shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, sleeves rolled neatly to his elbows.

“Then, Attorney Patterson,” he said quietly, “let the folder before you catch you up to speed.”

He turned then.

Blue eyes meeting blue eyes.

Two wills colliding in silence.

“And when you’re done,” Declan added, “I expect a detailed blueprint on how you plan to fix the mess you’ve created.”