They Treated the Ex-Wife Like Air—Until a Billionaire Bought the Entire Venue and Turned the Night Into a War
Lena Hart knew she’d made a mistake the moment the doorman looked through her like she was part of the glass.
Not rude—worse. Polite indifference.
A suited man with an earpiece leaned in, murmured her name into a mic, then stepped aside as if allowing a ghost to pass.
Inside, the Grand Aurum Hall glowed with money.
Crystal chandeliers hung like captured constellations. A carpet the color of spilled wine ran through the center of the room, leading to a stage framed by gold drapes and a wall of screens showing the gala’s logo: THE VANGUARD CHARITY SUMMIT.
The air smelled of citrus, perfume, and power.
Lena’s heels clicked once, twice, too loud against marble. She slowed, suddenly aware of how the room was arranged—clusters of laughter, arms touching shoulders, champagne flutes lifted in synchronized delight—while she stood outside every circle.
She wasn’t unknown. She was something more humiliating.
Known, and dismissed.
A woman turned, recognized her, then pivoted away mid-breath, as if Lena’s presence might stain her dress.
A man in a charcoal tuxedo gave Lena a thin smile, the kind reserved for old waiters and old scandals.
Someone whispered behind a fan of fingers. Lena caught only two words:
“—Graham’s ex—”
Her throat tightened, but she kept walking.
That was what she’d learned over the last two years: if you didn’t keep moving, the world would pin you to the wall with their stares and rewrite your story in real time.
Tonight’s story was already written.
Ex-wife. Discarded. Irrelevant.
Even though she’d helped build the fortune that paid for half the room.
Even though she was the reason the man of the hour—Graham Voss—stood near the stage laughing like a saint, his hand resting possessively on the back of a woman in a silver gown.
Sloane Wyett.
Future Mrs. Voss.
Lena felt a cold prickle climb her spine.
She hadn’t come to cause a scene. She hadn’t come to beg, or rage, or demand closure in front of a chandelier.
She’d come because the invitation had been delivered to her tiny office in an envelope as heavy as a threat.
No return address.
Her name written in confident black ink.
Inside, a single card:
Come tonight. Bring what you have. Or it ends worse.
No signature.
No explanation.
Just a time.
9:00 PM.
And she had what “she had” locked in a drawer: a slim flash drive and a paper ledger, the kind you never saw anymore—handwritten numbers, dates, initials.
Evidence.
Proof that someone was laundering money through charities and construction contracts, hiding it inside “philanthropy” like poison inside a sweet drink.
Lena had tried the normal route first: anonymous tips, calls that went nowhere, a meeting with a lawyer who suddenly stopped returning emails.
Someone had leaked her attempt.
After that came the warnings.
A tire slashed. A message sprayed on her office door. A man outside her building at night who didn’t hide his face because he didn’t need to.
So yes—Lena had come to the Grand Aurum Hall.
Because sometimes survival meant stepping directly into the wolf’s den and hoping the wolves were too busy eating each other to notice you.
She scanned the room.
There, near the stage, Graham stood like a man carved from winning.
Tall. Perfectly tailored. Hair swept back with that casual precision he paid someone for. His laugh was bright, the kind that made people lean in because it sounded like being chosen.
He turned slightly, and Lena saw the gleam at his wrist: an expensive watch she’d once given him when they were still pretending love wasn’t a transaction.
Sloane laughed at something he said, her hand drifting to his arm. People around them smiled, nodded, adored.
Nobody looked at Lena.
It wasn’t just that she was ignored.
It was that she was erased.
A server offered her a tray without meeting her eyes. Lena took a glass of water, because champagne would make her emotions sloppy and sloppy was dangerous.
A woman from the charity board approached, lips curved in a practiced expression.
“Lena,” the woman said, as if they’d run into each other at a grocery store rather than at the altar of the rich. “You made it.”
“I was invited,” Lena replied.
The woman’s smile tightened. “Of course. We’re… inclusive.”
Lena watched her eyes flick down to Lena’s dress—black, simple, carefully chosen to look respectful and unthreatening—and then away again, as if Lena’s fabric was too ordinary to stand beside the room’s shimmer.
“You’ll find your seat in the rear section,” the woman said quickly, already angling away. “We’re at capacity up front.”
Lena glanced at the rows of chairs near the stage.
Half of them were empty.
The woman followed her gaze and added, too brightly, “Reserved. Donors. You understand.”
Lena did understand.
You don’t belong here.
The woman left before Lena could respond.
Lena stood alone again, water glass sweating against her palm.
She swallowed, forced her shoulders back, and began walking toward the rear section, because pride didn’t pay medical bills and it didn’t stop cars from following you at night.
But before she reached the back row, the lights above the hall flickered once.
Not like a power outage.
More like a signal.
A low hum ran through the crowd as the screens behind the stage went black.
Conversations faltered.
People looked up, confused, annoyed, as if someone had interrupted their private narrative.
A man in an earpiece hurried toward the stage. Another followed. A third spoke into a handheld radio, voice tight.
Then, through a side entrance, someone walked in.
The temperature of the room seemed to change around him.
Not because he was handsome—though he was, in a sharp-edged way that suggested danger more than charm—but because he moved like the building already belonged to him.
Adrian Vale.
Lena recognized him from news clips and magazine covers: the billionaire whose face appeared beside words like acquisition and hostile takeover and philanthropist depending on what angle the press needed.
He wore a black suit with no flashy pin, no bright tie. Just clean lines and quiet dominance.
Two men flanked him, not in matching uniforms but in the subtle posture of trained protection—eyes scanning, steps measured, hands never quite relaxed.
Adrian didn’t look around like a guest.
He looked around like a landlord assessing the condition of his property.
He walked directly toward the stage.
Behind him, a ripple of whispers swelled.
“Is that…?”
“Vale—why is he here?”
“He never attends these…”
Graham Voss turned.
For the first time, Lena saw Graham’s smile flicker.
A slight miscalculation.
A microsecond where confidence considered fear and decided to pretend it didn’t exist.
Adrian reached the foot of the stage. A man from the event staff rushed forward, hands raised in a placating gesture.
“Mr. Vale, we weren’t informed you’d be joining—”
Adrian didn’t slow.
He stepped up the stage stairs, took the microphone from its stand, and faced the room like a blade facing flesh.
“Good evening,” he said.
His voice carried without effort, calm and precise. The room quieted the way animals quieted when a larger predator entered the clearing.
A few people laughed lightly—nervous laughs, hoping this was a joke they could later claim they understood.
Adrian continued.
“I apologize for the interruption,” he said. “There’s been a change of ownership.”
A murmur rolled across the hall.
Adrian looked out over the crowd as if waiting for their brains to catch up.
“The Grand Aurum Hall,” he said, “was purchased twenty-two minutes ago by Vale Holdings.”
The words landed like a slap.
Confusion became outrage.
Someone scoffed. Someone else whispered, “That’s not possible.”
Graham Voss’s face went still.
Lena’s heart stuttered.
Adrian lifted his hand slightly, and the two men at the side of the stage stepped forward, each holding a tablet.
The screens behind Adrian flashed on again.
A document appeared—logo, signatures, a timestamp, legal text too small for most eyes but not for the kind of people who lived by contracts.
SALE CONFIRMED.
A man near the front stood, voice sharp. “You can’t just—this is a charity event—”
Adrian’s gaze cut to him. “It was a charity event,” he corrected. “Now it’s a private event. On my property.”
A sharp inhale somewhere. A wave of shock that quickly turned into anger.
Adrian let it simmer.
Then he said, softly, “No one leaves until I’m finished.”
That did it.
Chairs scraped. People protested.
And then, like a second heartbeat, security flooded the edges of the room—new men, not the venue’s usual staff, moving with coordinated precision.
They weren’t aggressive.
They were simply there.
Blocking exits. Standing at doors. Presenting an unspoken truth:
Try it, if you want.
The room’s outrage stumbled, suddenly aware of consequence.
Adrian’s voice remained even. “This night was planned,” he said, “to honor generosity.”
He paused, letting the irony hang.
“I prefer honesty.”
His gaze swept the crowd and stopped—directly—on Lena.
It was like being struck by light.
Lena froze, water glass trembling in her hand.
Adrian’s eyes didn’t soften. They sharpened.
As if he’d finally found what he came for.
“Lena Hart,” he said, and the sound of her name from his mouth made the room pivot. Heads turned. Whispers snapped into new shapes.
Lena felt every stare like a pin.
Adrian took one step forward on the stage.
“You’ve been ignored,” he said, voice carrying, “because people here find it convenient to pretend you don’t exist.”
Graham Voss moved, cutting through the crowd toward the stage, Sloane trailing behind him with a face that couldn’t decide between fury and confusion.
“Vale,” Graham called, forcing a laugh into his tone. “What is this? Some kind of stunt?”
Adrian didn’t look at him.
Instead, Adrian said to the room, “Tonight, we correct an inconvenience.”
Lena’s throat went dry.
Adrian lifted a hand and motioned.
One of his men stepped forward and placed a small box on the lectern.
Adrian opened it.
Inside was a simple card and a set of keys.
Adrian held up the card. The screens behind him displayed its text in clean, bold letters:
THE ENTIRE VENUE IS RESERVED FOR LENA HART.
A stunned silence.
Then outrage, laughter, whispers, shock—an explosion of emotion contained within silk and etiquette.
Graham’s smile sharpened. “She’s my ex-wife,” he said loudly, as if that explained everything. “She has nothing to do with this—”
Adrian turned his head slightly, finally acknowledging him.
And in that glance, Lena saw something dangerous: not anger, not ego, but a cold, controlled intent that made Graham suddenly look… smaller.
“Ex-wife,” Adrian repeated, as if tasting the phrase.
Then, to the entire room: “Yes. The woman you helped erase.”
He leaned toward the mic. “I bought this venue so she can speak without being interrupted by people who confuse wealth with worth.”
Graham took another step, voice rising. “This is harassment. You’re holding people here—”
Adrian’s smile was razor-thin. “I’m holding nothing,” he said. “Doors are available when I say they are.”
A ripple of outrage.
A woman shouted, “This is kidnapping!”
Adrian didn’t flinch. “No,” he said calmly. “It’s accountability.”
Lena’s mind spun.
Why was Adrian Vale doing this?
Why was he calling her name like she mattered?
Why did Graham look like he wanted to shatter something?
And then Lena saw it—Graham’s right hand wasn’t relaxed.
It was clenched, tight enough to whiten his knuckles.
A signal.
Two men near the side of the room—men Lena hadn’t noticed before—shifted their stance. They weren’t event staff. Their eyes weren’t on Adrian.
They were on Lena.
Lena’s breath caught.
The warning card. The threats. The stalker outside her building.
The wolves weren’t just on the stage.
They were in the crowd.
Adrian’s gaze flicked to those two men for a fraction of a second.
Then back to Lena.
And Lena understood—without proof, without words—that Adrian had seen them too.
That was why security had changed.
That was why no one was allowed to leave.
Not because Adrian wanted to humiliate the rich.
Because he was building a cage.
And he wanted the wolves inside it.
Adrian spoke again. “Lena,” he said, “come forward.”
Every part of Lena’s body screamed don’t.
But if she didn’t move now, she would be moving later—dragged, silenced, erased.
She stepped forward.
The crowd parted reluctantly, like a living wall making space for someone they’d decided wasn’t real until now.
Graham watched her approach with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Sloane’s expression twisted. “Don’t,” she hissed under her breath as Lena passed. “Don’t embarrass him.”
Lena stopped, turned.
“Embarrass him?” Lena’s voice was low. “He embarrassed me when he taught you all I was disposable.”
Sloane’s cheeks flushed. “You lost. That’s what happens.”
Lena leaned in slightly. “It’s not a game,” she whispered. “It’s a crime scene.”
Sloane blinked, confusion cracking her arrogance.
Lena kept walking.
When she reached the stage stairs, one of Adrian’s security men extended a hand. Not touching her—just offering balance.
Lena took it and climbed.
On stage, under the lights, she could see the room’s faces more clearly—smiles turning to frowns, curiosity sharpening into hunger.
Adrian stepped aside, giving her the center.
He held the mic toward her.
Lena stared at him, and for the first time she saw something beneath the billionaire polish: a bruise near his collarbone, faint but present, like he’d been in a fight recently and didn’t care enough to hide it.
His voice dropped, too low for the crowd. “Do you have it?”
Lena’s fingers tightened around her clutch. Inside, the flash drive felt like a heartbeat.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Adrian’s eyes narrowed. “Good,” he murmured. “Then we end this tonight.”
Lena took the microphone.
Her hands trembled once, then steadied.
She looked at the crowd—the donors, the board members, the smiling predators—and saw, with sudden clarity, how comfortable they were in cruelty.
Ignoring someone was easy when everyone agreed to do it together.
She lifted her chin.
“My name is Lena Hart,” she said into the mic.
A few people shifted, as if hearing her claim space made them uncomfortable.
“I used to be Mrs. Graham Voss,” she continued.
Graham laughed lightly, raising his glass. “Here we go.”
Lena didn’t look at him.
“I built Voss Developments from the inside,” she said, voice strengthening. “I wrote proposals. I negotiated contracts. I cleaned up messes. I kept the company alive when the banks wanted to bury it.”
Murmurs.
Graham’s smile tightened. “You were my assistant,” he called.
Lena finally looked at him. “I was your partner,” she said, and the room vibrated with the word. “Until you decided partnership was inconvenient.”
Graham’s eyes flashed. “You’re here because a man bought a building. Congratulations.”
Adrian’s gaze stayed on Graham like a lock on a door.
Lena felt the room’s attention split—half drawn to her words, half waiting for Adrian to do something bigger.
So Lena did it herself.
“I’m here,” she said, “because charity has been used tonight to wash dirty money.”
That got their attention.
The murmurs sharpened. People leaned in.
Graham’s laugh turned brittle. “That’s—”
Lena reached into her clutch and pulled out the flash drive.
“Proof,” she said, holding it up.
The room’s breath caught.
Graham moved fast.
Too fast.
He vaulted up the stage stairs like a man with everything to lose.
Two of Adrian’s security men stepped into his path.
Graham didn’t stop.
He shoved one hard enough to send him stumbling.
The crowd gasped—half scandalized, half thrilled.
Graham’s hand snapped out toward Lena’s wrist—
And Adrian moved.
It was so quick Lena barely saw it.
Adrian grabbed Graham’s forearm, twisted, and drove him down onto the stage floor with controlled force.
Not theatrical.
Efficient.
Graham hit the stage with a hard thud that echoed in the silence.
Someone screamed.
Sloane shouted, “Graham!”
Graham tried to rise, face red with rage.
Adrian’s voice was quiet, lethal. “Touch her again,” he said, “and you’ll learn what it feels like to be powerless in a room full of witnesses.”
Graham spat, “You think you’re some kind of savior—”
Adrian leaned closer. “No,” he murmured. “I’m the consequence.”
Security hauled Graham up and dragged him toward the side of the stage.
The crowd erupted—phones lifted, whispers exploding, outrage colliding with excitement.
This was the kind of scandal people loved.
Lena stood frozen, flash drive still in her hand, heart hammering.
Adrian turned to her, voice low. “Keep going,” he said.
Lena swallowed, then raised the flash drive again.
“This contains transaction records,” she said, forcing her voice to stay steady. “Construction contracts routed through shell companies. Donations that never reached the charities listed. Names.”
A ripple of fear now. Not just gossip—fear.
Because names meant consequences.
A man near the front stood abruptly. “This is slander!”
Another voice: “She’s lying!”
A woman shouted, “Call the police!”
Adrian lifted his hand slightly.
His security shifted.
The room’s exits stayed blocked.
No one moved.
Lena’s skin tingled. “The police have been called,” she said, and she didn’t know if it was true until Adrian’s eyes flicked in approval.
Then chaos struck.
One of the two men Lena had noticed earlier pushed through the crowd toward the stage.
He moved like a man who didn’t care about cameras.
He didn’t shout.
He didn’t threaten.
He just reached inside his jacket.
Lena’s brain screamed a warning.
Adrian’s security moved at the same instant, but the man was fast—too fast.
A sharp crack split the air.
Not fireworks.
Not a champagne cork.
The crowd screamed.
People dropped.
Lena felt a violent tug at her arm as Adrian yanked her down behind the lectern.
A second crack.
Glass shattered somewhere above.
A chandelier chain rang like a bell.
The room detonated into panic—chairs flipping, bodies shoving, screams colliding with commands.
Adrian’s voice cut through it, hard and controlled. “DOWN!”
Lena crouched, breath ragged, pulse trying to claw out of her chest.
Across the stage, one of Adrian’s security men tackled the attacker, slamming him into the floor.
The man fought like an animal, swinging his arm, trying to aim again.
Another guard hit him. A third joined.
The attacker’s weapon clattered away.
The guard closest to it kicked it aside, then pinned the attacker’s wrist with a brutal precision that made Lena flinch.
It wasn’t pretty.
It was survival.
The attacker snarled something Lena didn’t catch, then went still as a guard pressed his forearm across the man’s throat just long enough to end the struggle.
Lena’s stomach churned.
She heard a woman sobbing nearby.
Someone screamed, “He’s bleeding!”
Lena risked a glance.
A man in the front row—an older donor—clutched his shoulder, face gray. Not a pool of horror, not gore—just the unmistakable shock of injury and the terrifying fact that the violence had reached them.
Adrian’s gaze swept the room like a sniper.
His security moved with ruthless discipline, corralling people away from exits, not to trap them now, but to stop a stampede.
Another man in the crowd lunged toward a side door.
A guard blocked him.
The man swung.
The guard struck back.
A fist, a grunt, a collapse.
Violence spread like spilled ink—messy, fast, impossible to control once it started.
Lena’s hands shook around the microphone.
Adrian leaned in close, voice low in her ear. “This is why I bought the venue,” he said. “So he couldn’t take you quietly.”
“Who—” Lena whispered, throat tight. “Who is he?”
Adrian’s eyes were cold. “Someone paid him,” he said. “Someone here.”
Lena’s mind snapped to Graham.
To the threats.
To the ledger.
To the rich smiling faces now twisted in fear.
Adrian straightened and stepped toward the mic again, as if bullets were an inconvenience he refused to acknowledge.
“Everyone stay where you are,” he said, voice amplified, steady. “No heroics. No exits. Police are two minutes out.”
Two minutes.
Lena didn’t know if it was true, but it sounded true enough to force the room into uneasy stillness.
Then Adrian looked at Lena.
“Now,” he said, “we finish.”
Lena stood, legs shaky.
She raised the flash drive.
Her voice came out stronger than she felt. “You tried to erase me,” she said, looking directly at Graham—who was being held near the stage wing, face twisted with fury and something like panic. “And when ignoring me didn’t work, you tried something worse.”
Graham shouted, “She’s insane!”
Lena didn’t flinch. “I have records,” she said. “And so does he.”
She nodded toward Adrian.
The crowd’s gaze snapped to Adrian again.
Adrian lifted a small remote.
The screens behind them changed.
Not the gala logo anymore.
A spreadsheet. Names. Dates. Payments.
Then—security footage.
A man in a parking garage handing an envelope to someone Lena recognized with a jolt.
Not Graham.
Sloane.
Sloane Wyett stood in the video, face angled away, but the posture was unmistakable. She took the envelope, slipped it into her clutch.
The timestamp glowed in the corner of the footage.
Two nights ago.
The room went dead quiet.
Sloane’s face drained.
She whispered, “No—”
Graham turned slowly, disbelief cracking his rage. “Sloane?”
Sloane stumbled backward. “It’s not—he’s manipulating—”
Adrian’s voice was calm, merciless. “The man who attacked tonight was paid,” he said. “The account that paid him routes through a charity shell, then through a development subcontractor, then into an account under Sloane Wyett’s name.”
Sloane’s lips parted, silent.
Graham’s face tightened like a fist.
“You did this?” he hissed.
Sloane shook her head too quickly. “I did it for us,” she choked out. “You said—Lena was a risk—”
Lena felt the world tilt.
It wasn’t just about money.
It was about silencing her.
Because she had become inconvenient again.
The crowd’s outrage turned.
Not toward Lena anymore.
Toward the woman in silver who had been smiling beside Graham like a prize.
Phones lifted higher.
Someone shouted, “Call security!”
Adrian’s security already had Sloane boxed in.
Sloane’s eyes darted wildly, searching for a door, a friend, a loophole.
She found none.
Sirens rose in the distance, thin at first, then louder.
Graham stared at Sloane like she was a stranger wearing his future.
Then he looked at Lena.
And for the first time that night, his confidence cracked completely.
“You’re doing this to ruin me,” he spat.
Lena’s voice was quiet. “You ruined me when you made me invisible,” she said. “I’m just refusing to stay that way.”
Graham’s jaw tightened. “You think this makes you powerful?”
Lena lifted her chin. “No,” she said. “It makes me real.”
The police arrived like a wave—uniforms flooding the doors now opened by Adrian’s men, officers shouting, controlling, securing.
The room erupted again, but this time the chaos had direction.
The attacker was hauled away.
The injured donor was treated.
People were questioned, recorded, held.
Sloane was escorted out with her face in her hands, silver gown smeared at the hem from the struggle.
Graham was taken too—still shouting, still trying to own the narrative, but his words sounded smaller now, swallowed by consequence.
Through it all, Adrian stood beside Lena like a shadow that refused to leave her unprotected.
When the worst of the noise faded, an officer approached the stage, eyes narrowing at Adrian. “Mr. Vale,” he said. “You’re going to explain why you locked down a venue full of civilians.”
Adrian’s expression didn’t change. “Because if I didn’t,” he said, “someone would have left in a body bag.”
The officer stared, then looked at Lena.
Lena held up the flash drive.
“And because this,” she said, “was going to disappear along with me.”
The officer’s jaw worked, then he nodded once, curt.
“Ma’am,” he said, voice gentler now, “you’re coming with us.”
Lena’s hands trembled again. She set the microphone down.
As she stepped off stage, the crowd parted differently than before.
Not out of dismissal.
Out of uneasy respect… and fear.
Because the invisible woman had spoken, and the room had bled for it.
In the hallway beyond the grand doors, away from cameras and chandeliers, Lena finally exhaled.
Her knees threatened to fold.
Adrian caught her elbow—not possessive, not performative. Just steady.
“You planned this,” Lena said hoarsely, eyes locked on his. “You knew they’d try.”
Adrian’s gaze was steady. “I suspected,” he said. “And I don’t like leaving people alone in rooms full of liars.”
Lena swallowed. “Why me?”
Adrian’s jaw tightened, and for the first time he looked less like a headline and more like a man.
“Because you weren’t supposed to survive their story,” he said quietly. “And I hate when bad stories win.”
Lena let out a shaky laugh that wasn’t humor. “So you bought the whole building.”
Adrian’s mouth twitched. “It was the fastest way to control doors,” he said. “And cameras. And witnesses.”
Lena stared at him, realization clicking into place.
“This wasn’t romance,” she said.
“No,” Adrian replied. “It was leverage.”
Lena looked back toward the hall, where officers moved and voices echoed.
She’d walked in tonight as an ex-wife no one wanted to acknowledge.
She was walking out as the center of a scandal that would rip through boardrooms and headlines and courtrooms.
And yet the most controversial truth wasn’t the money, or the violence, or the billionaire’s dramatic purchase.
It was simpler.
The people who had ignored her had helped create the monster they feared now.
Because they had taught Graham—taught all of them—that erasing someone had no cost.
Tonight, the cost arrived.
Lena tightened her grip on her clutch, feeling the emptiness where the flash drive had been handed over to law enforcement.
She turned to Adrian.
“What happens now?” she asked.
Adrian’s eyes were calm, but not cold anymore. “Now,” he said, “they’ll try to rewrite it again. They’ll say you were unstable. That I staged it. That you’re lying.”
Lena nodded slowly. “And if they do?”
Adrian leaned slightly closer, voice low. “Then we make sure the truth is louder.”
“We?” Lena repeated.
Adrian’s gaze held hers. “If you want,” he said. “You don’t owe me anything.”
Lena stared at him, the billionaire who had bought a building to keep her alive, who had turned her humiliation into a courtroom.
She felt anger, fear, gratitude, disgust at the necessity of power—all tangled together.
Controversial, messy, human.
Finally, she said, “I’m done being ignored.”
Adrian’s expression softened by a fraction. “Good,” he said. “Because they’re going to pay attention now.”
Outside, the night air hit Lena’s face like a slap—cold, sharp, real.
Cameras flashed beyond the police line.
Reporters shouted questions.
Lena stepped forward anyway.
For the first time in two years, she didn’t feel like a footnote in someone else’s story.
She felt like the opening line.
And somewhere behind her, in the glow of sirens and shattered glass, the Grand Aurum Hall stood—still glittering, still expensive, but no longer untouchable.
Because tonight, it had learned what the world always forgets until it’s too late:
Ignoring someone doesn’t make them disappear.
Sometimes it just gives them time to come back with receipts… and an ally powerful enough to buy the doors before the wolves can close them.
Lena lifted her chin toward the cameras.
The questions surged.
And she answered with the only thing that mattered.
Her name.
Clear.
Unignorable.
Real.
