Same as his mother used to be.”

Adaira would have smiled, if her face had been hers to command. Weak. That was what he had always believed about her, and it was the root of every mistake he was now making.

He had never understood that her strength had nothing to do with the heels she wore into federal courtrooms or the volume she could summon against opposing counsel.

Her strength was her memory.

It was her patience.

It was the ability to sit perfectly still and let a guilty man keep talking until he had assembled, brick by brick, the case against himself.