All Chapters of Professor Grayson's Favorite sin : Chapter 141 - Chapter 150

Chapter 140The full briefing took forty minutes.Roman joined by phone halfway through. Damien talked, Roman added context, and Lennon listened without interrupting until they were done. He asked six questions. Roman answered all of them precisely.When it was over Lennon sat with it for a moment."The Volkov family has a standing grievance with your family," he said to Damien."Yes. Going back fifteen years. Before I left the family's business completely." He paused. "I took a path they considered disloyal.""And someone has decided I am the leverage point.""The phrasing is: someone who has become his vulnerability. Yes."Lennon looked at the island. He thought about that phrasing. He thought about what it meant to be someone's vulnerability. He thought about forty-six pages in a drawer."I am not afraid for myself," Lennon said. "I want to say that clearly. Whatever the contract says, I chose this. I chose him. That is not something I need protecting from."Damien held his gaze."

Chapter 142The second shot came from the east side of the garden.Nobody had expected a second shot. Roman had tackled the shooter, the shooter had run, Roman's contact had gone after him. The room had settled into the specific aftermath of a near-miss—adrenaline and stillness. Evelyn serving pasta with the calm of a woman who had decided that dinner was a form of resistance.The second shot came through the garden window.Glass.Damien was on his feet before the sound finished registering. He crossed the room in two steps. He put himself between Lennon and the window. His hands came up, the same check as always, face jaw shoulders and stopped at Lennon's arm where the sleeve had gone dark."You are bleeding," Damien said.Lennon looked at his arm. He looked at the glass on the floor. He looked at Damien's face."I am fine," he said."You are bleeding," Damien said again, the same way, the flat certain way that was not actually flat. Underneath it was something that had stripped the

Chapter 144"I found this three days ago," Kessler said.He looked at the folder. He did not open it yet."I have been going through my contact files," he said. "Old ones. The kind of contacts you accumulate in thirty years of politics and eventually stop thinking about because they become wallpaper." He paused. "I found something I did not know I had.""What did you find," Lennon said."The name of the person who commissioned the contract." He looked at the folder. "Not the Volkov family. The Volkovs were paid. Someone with institutional access paid them." He looked at Lennon. "I traced it through the contact chain because that is what I know how to do. And I want you to have it before.." He paused. "Before Roman does. Because I think you should have this. Your name is on the file, it should come to you first."Lennon looked at the folder."Open it," Damien said. From the chair. Quiet.Lennon picked up the folder. He opened it.Inside were printed communications. Email chains, trans

Chapter 146 She looked at her hands for a long time before she started. "He was connected to your father's business for a long time. Not as a principal. As a silent investor." She looked at Damien. "Your father trusted him because he was useful and because useful people get trusted in that world before they get doubted." Damien was very still. "Fifteen years ago," Evelyn said, "there was a deal. Your father had been in the business for a long time by then. He knew how things worked. He knew that deals sometimes failed and that when they did, someone absorbed the cost." She paused. "This deal was large. Three parties, your father, Hale, and a third investor. The third investor's money was supposed to be protected." She looked at the floor. "The deal failed. The third investor lost everything." "What happened," Damien said. "Your father absorbed the liability," Evelyn said. "He took the public weight of the failure. He protected the principals from exposure. He believed he was p

The bank was quiet at nine AM.Roman had not told Lennon where they were going, he had said come in person and Lennon had been reaching for his jacket before the call ended. But the walk from the hospital to the financial district branch had taken twenty minutes, and in that time Kessler had been talking.He talked the way he talked most things carefully, in order, with the specific structure of a man who had spent thirty years presenting information for maximum clarity and minimum sentiment. He explained the attorney. He explained the estate instructions. He explained the seven years of carrying a key he had categorized as an administrative courtesy and had not gotten around to returning or discarding."He told me it contained property documents," Kessler said. "Deeds or titles for something the estate was winding down. He said there was no urgency. He said: hold this for me, I will arrange the next step." He paused. "And then he died and there was no next step and I kept the key.