Blackwood.”
The name meant little to Maya, but the reactions of the people around her told her that it should.
“I believe you met my sister yesterday,” he continued.
Maya forgot the eviction notice in her hand.
“Lily? Is she alive?”
For a brief moment, Adrien’s carefully controlled expression softened.
“She is.
Because you stopped when everyone else would have kept walking.”
He offered Maya a thick envelope.
She opened it and found a check large enough to erase her immediate financial problems.
Her eyes widened, but she handed it back.
“I didn’t do it for money.”
Adrien studied her.
People rarely refused him, especially when he offered something they desperately needed.
“Then what do you want?”
Maya looked down at the eviction notice and then back at him.
“A chance to take my exam and become a lawyer.
I want to earn my future, not have somebody buy it for me.”
“You think money buys everything?”
“I think some people believe it does.”
His security chief shifted uncomfortably.
Adrien simply regarded her with renewed interest.
“Come to the hospital,” he said.
“My sister wants to see you.”
At Mercy General, Lily was awake.
Her face was pale, and an intravenous line ran into her arm, but when she saw Maya, she began to cry.
“You saved me,” Lily whispered.
Maya took her hand.
“I’m just glad you’re alive.”
Lily’s gaze flicked toward the doorway, where Adrien stood with his arms folded.
“You need to know something,” she said.
“This wasn’t an accident.”
The room became silent.
Lily explained that she had attended a private gathering at the nightclub the previous evening.
She remembered drinking from a glass that had been handed to her by someone she trusted.
Soon afterward, the room began to spin.
She tried to leave, but her memories became fragmented.
Before she collapsed, she overheard two people discussing a plan to remove her from the way of a deal that could change the balance of power inside her brother’s organization.
She could not remember every word, but she remembered a voice.
A voice she had known for years.
“Someone close to you did this,” Lily told Adrien.
“Someone who knew where I would be and what I was drinking.”
Adrien’s jaw tightened.
He had spent years building an organization that depended on loyalty.
The thought that a trusted member of his inner circle had targeted his sister was almost too dangerous to consider.
Maya listened quietly.
She had missed her exam to save a life, not to become involved in a criminal empire.
Yet Lily was the same young woman she had found gasping in the rain, and someone had apparently tried to make sure she never woke up.
“You need the police,” Maya said.
“You need evidence, medical records, and a proper investigation.
If you want the person responsible held accountable, you cannot just accuse somebody because you suspect them.”
Adrien turned toward her.
“You speak as though you’re already a lawyer.”
“I earned my degree.
I just haven’t passed the bar yet.”
For the first time, a trace of amusement crossed his face.
“Then perhaps you should start by helping my sister organize everything she remembers.
We will preserve the evidence and find out who was responsible.”
Maya hesitated.
“And my exam?”
“My staff
