42. Justin
JUSTIN
The university falls behind us in the side mirror, all stone buildings and trimmed hedges, like appearance can keep corruption from spreading.
Titan drives. One hand on the wheel, the other resting near the console, relaxed in a way that doesn’t fool me.
His attention is sharp. His eyes track every car that merges behind us, every pedestrian near the crossing, every security vehicle parked near the gates.
He’s always been security conscious, and never more than when I’d met him and he was head of Goliath and he wore a mask to conceal his identity.
These days, he carries his scars like a talisman, facial burns and all.
My jaw is tight from holding my temper in check. The dean’s office still sits in the back of my mind like an open file I can’t close. Rowan’s voice too. The way she looked when she said parts of her were missing.
I keep my tone even. “What was that about?” I ask. “When you asked about his son?”
Titan’s grip shifts slightly. He doesn’t answer straight away. He glances at me, then back to the road, like he’s deciding whether I’m ready for the blunt version or the one that lets me arrive at it myself.
He takes too long.
“You’re going to make me say it,” I add.
He exhales. “How many school officials do you know,” he comments, “who could get a fake ID that quickly, then put their son on a plane out of the country under that name, and not get caught?”
The question is a valid one, filled with logic.
I stare at him. “You think he’s lying.”
“He’s not being truthful,” Titan confirms. “That’s the safest scenario.”
I let the silence sit for a moment. My mind goes back to the dean’s pauses. The way his eyes shifted when Titan asked for the name. The way he didn’t deny he’d done it—he just didn’t want to say it out loud.
“You noticed something,” I say.
Titan keeps his eyes on the road. “He gave us a story that was designed to make him look like a father trying to protect his kid from consequences. A mistake, a bad crowd.” He glances at me again.
“But he didn’t talk like a man who was saving his son.
He talked like a man who was protecting himself. ”
Protecting himself.
I think about the way he said his son had been “involved.” The way he avoided specifics. The way he tried to guide the conversation toward “tragic accident” instead of “deliberate harm.”
“Thomas Harding,” I say out loud, testing the name in my mouth.
Titan nods once. “It’s a real name now. It’s attached to a flight manifest somewhere. It’s attached to passport control, baggage tags, hotel check-ins. Or it should be. If it isn’t, that tells us something too.”
My phone buzzes with a notification. I ignore it. My focus stays on Titan, on the logic he’s laying down piece by piece.
“You want to verify the travel,” I say.
“I want to verify everything,” Titan replies. “Because if the dean lied about one part, we have to assume he lied about the rest.”
I let out a slow breath through my nose and look out the window. Students move along the footpaths in groups. Laughing. Talking. Headphones in. Not watching the cars. Reckless.
“To what end?” I ask him.
“Only the dean can answer that. The dean, or or Daniel Stockton himself.”
I think of Rowan and Missy. I think of what it does to someone to have their body and mind forced into survival mode for too long. The dean didn’t have the right to decide what truth gets told and what truth gets buried.
Titan’s voice cuts in again. “Call Silas.”
I blink once. “Now?”
“Yes. Before we get distracted.”
I pull my phone out and hit Silas’s contact. It rings twice.
Silas answers with no greeting. “Talk.”
Titan speaks first, voice calm. “We need two things.”
Silas doesn’t ask why. Nor does he ask for context. “Go.”
Titan checks the road ahead, then continues. “All outbound flights to Australia in 2016 and 2017 with a Thomas Harding on board. Every airline, every route. If there’s a connecting flight through Asia, Europe, anywhere—track it.”
Silas’s breathing is quiet on the line. I can hear typing in the background.
Titan adds, “And hospital records for Daniel Stockton, second half of 2016. Admissions. Emergency visits. Ambulance call-outs. Anything that puts him in a bed.”
Silas pauses. “Hospital records aren’t public.”
“I know.”
Another pause. Then Silas gives a flat, practical answer. “I can find billing trails, insurance activity, and certain admin logs. Might take time.”
“You have it,” Titan tells him. “But we need to know as soon as you have something.”
Silas makes a sound that could be agreement. “Anything else?”
Titan’s eyes flick in the mirror. “Yes. Get me Dean Stockton’s financials. If he’s moving money offshore, I want to know about it.”
Silas doesn’t hesitate. “Done.”
The call ends.
For a few seconds the only sound is the engine and the indicator as Titan changes lanes.
“What reason would he have to lie about his son?” I ask. The question comes out harsher than I intend. “If he thinks his son is innocent, why hide him at all? Why not just go to the police and report Scott-Evans?”
Titan’s mouth tightens slightly. “If his son was innocent. For all we know, the son could’ve played a more pivotal role in Missy Hale’s death.
“You think the son is guilty.”
Titan doesn’t look at me when he answers. “I think the son is involved.”
“Involved how?”
Titan’s hands stay steady on the wheel. “It could be anything. But the effort it takes to build an identity and move someone out of the country like that? That’s not what people do when they think their kid was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That’s what they do when they think the truth will destroy them. ”
I sit back and process it.
“We’ve heard one side,” Titan continues. “We have yet to hear from Marcus Delaney and Scott-Evans.”
The mention of Scott-Evans makes my core burn with anger.
Even now, after everything, I have to control the urge to go straight to him and force the truth out by any means necessary.
That’s the problem with cases like this.
They make you want shortcuts. They make you want outcomes more than process.
But I’ve learned what shortcuts cost.
Rowan’s “missing parts” run through my head again. Missy’s silence. The outward normal that never matches what’s going on underneath.
“Rowan said she wanted him interrupted,” I say, mostly to myself.
Titan glances at me, quick. “She wants attention on him.”
“She wants institutions to stop protecting him,” I add.
“Yes, and that’s a natural way to feel about someone who killed your sibling.”
I look down at my hands. I didn’t realize I’d clenched them until my fingers start to ache. I force them open and rest them on my thighs.
We pass through a set of lights. Titan’s phone lights up on the console with a message notification. He doesn’t pick it up while driving. He registers it and keeps going.
“We need to move carefully,” I say.
Titan nods. “It’s time we introduced ourselves to Scott-Evans and Delaney.”
I stare out the window, the city bleeding past in streaks of light. The anger doesn’t spike. It settles. Dense. Permanent.
Titan’s gaze flicks to me. “Where is he now?”
“I’ve got Silas looking,” I answer. “Scott-Evans went underground after Alumni Weekend. Kept his head down. We’ve got eyes on Marcus.”
Titan nods once. Then—carefully—“Which brings us to the other question.”
I feel it coming before he says it.
“Who poisoned Scott-Evans?”
I don’t answer right away. Not because I’m weighing a lie—but because I know exactly what this question is. A test. Not of loyalty. Of leadership.
Titan may question my decisions. He may push me. But I won’t insult him by lying.
“You already know the answer to that,” I say quietly.
I won’t let Rowan carry that weight alone. Not when the world failed her first. Not when what she did was the only kind of justice she was ever offered. I hate that she had to do it. I’m grateful she didn’t finish the job. And I’m relieved she didn’t get caught.
Titan exhales through his nose, the edge easing just slightly.
“Well,” he says after a beat, “about time you found yourself a woman who’s as ruthless as my Lily.”