They found Liam in his room, not with a puzzle, but staring at a legal pad covered in his own neat script pros and cons, lines of logic, the architecture of a decision. He looked up as they entered, his face grim. He’d already heard from Miranda.
“I won’t lie,” he said before they could speak. “I won’t stand there and say everything is forgiven. That we’re one big happy family.”
“We’re not asking you to lie,” Kaelan said, his voice low. “We’re asking you to stand with us. That’s the truth. We are standing together, right now, in this mess. That’s all they need to see.”
“It feels like a surrender,” Liam argued, but the fire was gone from his voice, replaced by a weary pragmatism. “It feels like letting them use my pain as a prop for your corporate rehabilitation.”
“It’s not for our reha
