I told Julian everything Marissa had said that same night, sitting across from him at his kitchen island in the same spot where, weeks earlier, a different conversation about his son had detonated into the worst night of both our lives, and I watched him absorb it with a stillness that told me he was fighting the exact instinct Marissa had predicted he would.
"Marcus is going to say retreating now hands Desmond's allies a narrative," he said finally, already half-reaching for the strategist's version of the problem before he caught himself doing it. "That silence reads as guilt to anyone still watching the coverage, that the board could—"
"Julian." I said his name quietly enough that he actually stopped. "Listen to yourself. You're doing exactly what she said you'd do."
He went still, t
