Hazel's POV
“Someone is buying up shares of your old company under a shell name,” Julian's former CFO said over the phone, “and I think you need to see exactly who's behind it before the board finds out first.”
Julian had been calm for a full year. I had watched calm become his default setting instead of his mask, watched him trade boardrooms for grant meetings without once looking back. So when I saw his shoulders lock up mid call, phone pressed hard against his ear, I knew whatever Marcus was telling him wasn't ordinary business.
“Say that name again,” Julian said, his voice gone flat in a way I hadn't heard since before London.
He listened for a long moment, then closed his eyes, and I watched an old exhaustion settle back over his face, the particular weariness of a man who thought
