Chapter 148
The First Quiet Dinner
Mara and Adrian meet without a contract, security, or audience.
Mara refused to let the new evidence become another order issued by a powerful man. She made the next call herself and brought only the people whose motives she could test. Adrian stayed close enough to intervene and far enough away to make the distance visible.
Julian supplied the medical detail. Naomi supplied the legal edge. Celia supplied the record no one else could authenticate. Together, they turned the private debt into a public question while Victor kept changing the cost of asking it.
He asks permission before sitting beside her.