With Lila awake, everything else became secondary.
The Ashley plan? Postponed.
The Dmitri revelation? It would unfold in its own time; my presence. The Quantum Tech visit? Charlotte would understand—some things transcended business.
Tonight belonged wholly to Lila. Tonight was about bringing her home.
She had slept for hours after first waking—true, restorative sleep, not the void of coma. Her body, at last convinced of its safety, had surrendered to healing.
When she stirred again—truly lucid, eyes bright and focused—I told her everything that had transpired after I carried her from that room. The hospital vigil. The endless waiting. The unshakeable certainty that she would return to me.
Then, in fragments halting and brave, she told me her story.
Lila. An orphan.
Raised in the indifferent machinery of state care, where children learned early that the world extended kindness only when it coveted something in return.
