“You can’t do this to your own family.”

Adele looked down at her sleeping son.

“You stopped being my family,” she said, “the moment you rejected him before you’d even asked his name.”

Chapter 10 — The Findings

The attorney read from the binder, unbothered by the interruptions, in the flat cadence of a man reciting facts that did not require his emotion to be true.

The audit had turned up twenty-seven non-competitive contracts.