The afternoon sun pierced through the gaps of the trees in the back garden of Columbia Law School, casting a warm orange hue over the stone benches. Valera Dawson sat with her new encrypted tablet glowing on her lap. Her fingers moved with a constant speed, composing the additional commercial report draft requested by Marcus Vance.
There was a different vibration of energy inside Valera's body today. Her phone conversation with Arthur Dawson last night had released something that had been shackled within her chest for these eight years. The fear that usually haunted her had now evaporated, replaced by a cold decisiveness. Garrick Valentino's possessive touch and kiss inside the sedan car last night felt like an unwritten stamp that she was no longer a prey who could be trampled upon in Ma
