Elira didn’t sleep.
While Damien paced and Valencia schemed, she sat alone at the end of the hallway—laptop open, old memories in flames behind her eyes.
She was done reacting. Done crying. Done waiting for men to clean up the messes they helped create.
Valencia wanted to play?
Then she’d learn what happened when you pushed a mother too far.
By dawn, Elira had gathered what she needed.
A contact from her past.
A hacker who owed her a favor.
And a sealed file marked: Waverly Institute—Subject V.L.
She closed her laptop slowly.
Time to use the past.
—
“I need to talk to you,” she told Damien at breakfast.
He was shirtless, tired, still licking wounds from the night before.
He nodded. “Tell me.”
“I want you to trust me,” she said. “But not just emotionally. Strategically.”
He
