Lena's POV
The note Tara had delivered sat at the center of the table between us, but no one looked at it directly. We were all looking at something else, at the shape of what my father had done and the particular calculation behind it.
He had not done it in anger. I needed everyone in the room to understand that. Marcus Cole did not operate from anger. He operated from accounting. He had looked at the ledger of his life, identified the entry that was costing him the most, and removed it. That was all I had ever been to him. An entry that did not balance.
Sienna had left when I told her to. Tara was at the window. Bastian stood near the door, waiting.
I had already gone through the initial shape of the fear and come out the other side of it. What remained was the particular cold clarit
