“I was angry you had a world I couldn’t enter,” he said. “I thought you looked down on me.”
“I loved you.”
His eyes filled.
“And that embarrassed you,” I said. “Because love was less useful than access.”
He whispered, “I’m sorry.”
I almost hated him more for sounding sincere.
My mother crossed the room and took the drive from Mara.
“No,” I said.
She looked at me. “You are not going to that courthouse alone.”
“Calloway said—”
“Calloway has been writing the script for twenty-seven years.” Her eyes hardened. “Now I write one.”
Something in the room changed.
Vivienne Ashford returned.
Not the grieving mother. Not the elegant wife. Not the woman who had unknowingly signed away her son.
The strategist.
She turned to Mara. “Can the files be copied?”
“Already done.”
“Can they be transmitted?”
“Yes, but if Calloway has signal jammers—”
“Not to law enforcement,” my mother said. “To everyone.”
