Chapter 13
The first shock is the file.
It appears in her inbox without warning, unmarked, encrypted, sent from an address that doesn’t exist twice.
Inside are medical records.
Their mother’s.
Dates.
Symptoms.
Medication changes.
Michelle’s hands shake as she scrolls.
The dosage was wrong.
Not accidentally.
Deliberately.
Her mother didn’t just die under pressure.
She was pushed.
The second revelation arrives seconds later.
A signature.
Saxton’s lawyer.
Michelle feels something cold settle behind her ribs.
Isolation fractures into clarity.
She calls Lena.
They meet in secret, away from cameras, away from handlers, away from Saxton’s controlled environments.
“I think he killed her,” Michelle says.
Lena doesn’t hesitate.
“I know he tried to kill you,” she replies.
The words hang there, irreversible.
“He’s been asking about firearms,” Lena continues. “About self-defense laws. About what counts.”
Embarrassment flashes—how blind Michelle’s been.
Then betrayal finalizes into certainty.
That night, Michelle packs.
Not to run.
To prepare.
She hides the gun in her bag with shaking hands, not because she wants to use it, but because she finally understands that morality doesn’t protect you from people who treat life like a transaction.
Her phone lights up.
Saxton.
Come talk.
Alone.
She exhales slowly.
She knows now this conversation will not end cleanly.
And that one of them won’t leave it alive.
