Evelyn's POV:
The Sterling estate in Hillsborough was an expansive stone-and-timber property set among hundreds of acres of rolling pine woodland.
Before the family dinner scheduled for New Year's Eve, the estate's secondary library was opened for a brief logistics prep session on the translational project. It was a minimal, practical check: myself, Sophia Bennett, Adrian, and a single local liaison from Duke's clinical trials office, with the broader Hudson and Vantage teams scheduled to join via secure video on Monday morning. The goal was simply to confirm the transfer readiness for the botanical reference materials arriving at the Research Triangle park.
I arrived at two in the afternoon, dressed in a tailored charcoal wool suit, carrying my technical binder.
Adrian was already in
