I'm at the training ground at five-thirty when my mother finds me.
Drace left twenty minutes ago after pushing me through an earlier, harder session, his version of approval. I’m cooling down when she appears carrying two cups of tea, wearing the look of someone who has been awake for hours preparing for a difficult conversation.
She hands me one and sits on the low wall.
“I spoke to Constantin last night.”
I stare at her. “You answered?”
“His legal team arranged it. He requested it, and I decided I was finished managing my response to that man.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he was sorry.” She pauses. “In the careful, lawyer-approved way of a man in the middle of a regulatory collapse. But he said it.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I believe he is sorry now that the cost has become visibl
