ETHAN'S POV
I stood in the corner of the dimly lit study, my hand curled around a glass of untouched whiskey. The air was quiet, too quiet, like the breath held between two thunderclaps. Ava was resting upstairs with Zariah, after everything that unfolded over the last few days. But sleep wouldn't come for me. Not yet.
The files we'd gathered were stacked on the desk, and I'd already gone through them twice. My instincts were gnawing at me, there was still a missing piece, one that hadn't clicked into place yet. Whoever had orchestrated this whistleblower leak, whoever had tried to turn the tide against Ava's foundation and frame her motives, hadn't acted alone. They were backed. Funded. Shielded.
I'd made enough enemies in my career to know that silence was never truly empty, it just meant the next strike was being sharpened.
So, I was sharpening mine.
