Brandon found the family lawyer’s office before the rain did, boots leaving dark crescents on the marble as he pushed the door open. The receptionist barely looked up; the building smelled faintly of old paper and lemon polish, a smell he associated with appointments that resolved nothing. He didn’t sit. He paced. He waited. When Mr. Calder finally appeared—thin, gray at the temples, reputation ironed into every measured syllable—Brandon’s pulse tightened like a fist.
“You called?” Brandon’s voice was flat. He kept his hands visible on the desktop, because he’d learned how quick his own fingers could grow when anger had room to move.
Calder folded his hands, the way a man folds hands who has folded other people’s lives into legal pages. “There’s a petition,” he said. “Filed under a seale
