CHAPTER 45
The video wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was not knowing why it mattered.
Why it felt like a threat.
Why it sat in my inbox like a countdown.
I replayed it, again and again—no sound, no faces, just the echo of something I should remember. A detail I was missing. A moment I had lived through… but couldn’t reach.
It was killing me.
Not just the paranoia.
The not-knowing.
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Mariam paced the room, muttering names and connections. Lana worked on a whiteboard like a war strategist.
But I just sat there, trapped in my own mind, staring at the screen.
“I think it’s about Evan,” I finally said.
They looked at me.
“I think… I think he’s why they’re coming after me.”
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Evan Douglas.
To the world: philanthropist. Tech mogul. Clean-cut. Groomed. Dangerous in that quie
