But I didn’t have to fight them in the shadows.

I had something better: the truth, documented, and a country full of institutions built to act on it.

I did not need to defeat anyone personally.

I needed to hand the right documents to the right authorities and let the machinery do what the machinery is for.

The toxicology report and the prescription trail went to the district attorney as evidence of a crime committed against my body.

The forensic accounting — the siphoned vendor contracts, the shell structures, Perpetua’s real fingerprints — went to the SEC and the FBI, packaged and indexed by Corinne so no overworked investigator could get bored before reaching the bottom.