Ethan handed Harris a coffee.
“Commanders need coffee,” he said, repeating the belief he had carried the year before.
Harris accepted it carefully.
“So do guards.”
Ethan laughed and ran toward Marcus, who was waiting near the new building.
Olivia remained at the gate for a moment.
She remembered the clipboard trembling in Harris’s hand, Serena’s cream coat in the window, and Andrew’s arm around a woman whose company was spending money secured by his own child.
She had arrived that morning believing she was bringing her husband breakfast.
She had left with the truth.
The difference was not that she had powerful brothers, a foundation, or attorneys who answered quickly.
Those things had helped stop the damage, but they had not made the decision for her.
Her real power had been the moment she refused to beg for an explanation from a man already hiding behind uniforms, locked doors, and forged paperwork.
She had covered her son’s ears.
She had opened the records.
And when the truth finally spoke, she had not looked away.
