s he passed, the man who attacked his poor, sick brother. The burn on his chest was a dull throb, a physical manifestation of the humiliation. He didn't go back to t

that was supposed to represent his success, and felt nothing but failure. His company, his life's work, felt hollow. He had built it all on a f

wered on the first ring, a desperate

s soft, devoid of the anger from their last conversat

hrough his defenses. "No," he said, his own voice cracking. "I

he line. "I know," she said, not with triump

off

e suddenly urgent. "Don't go back to the

sh wave of cold

the cameras. It was Ethan. He checked himself out of the hospital, went back to the apartment, and took everythin

he biggest deal in his company's history next week. Without them, the deal

Ethan filed a report against you. Assault. He's claiming you've been abus

his footing. He was being framed, dismantled piece by piece. His brother wa

hloe said. "To tell them what really happened. But Lia

, sitting in the garden, telling him to always look out for his brother. "He's not as strong as you, Liam," she used to say. "He feels thi

ost the last lingering, hopeful memory of his family. The idealized image of the brot

ding. The office was supposed to be empty. He got up and walked quietly to his door, peering through the frosted gl

was Ethan. And he was with a man Liam recognized from his company' s board-Mark Renshaw, a man he had trus

. "The back-door access is in. Once we trigger it, it'll wipe their servers and reroute the source code for Nexus to our shell corporation's cloud. By the

olice?" Et

Tech will be a smoking crater. You played your part perfectly, my boy. Faking that illness was a stroke of g

am this' and 'Liam that'. Even when she was dying, she was asking for him." Then Ethan said something that made the world stop. "It's a good thing

d been a car accident on a rainy night. She had lost control on a slick road. That's what the police had said. An

er, the man whose hand he had held as a child, had killed their mother. The grief he felt was a physical agony, a sharp, tearing pain in his chest far worse than the soup burn. It was