Marcus Vance walked to the walnut table, picked up the broken frame of my family, pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket, and gently wiped the stray drop of Carter Holbrook’s blood from the glass:
“Sebastian,” Marcus said softly.
“Yes, Marcus?”
“Eleanor is awake at Saint Anthony’s.”
“She asked me to tell you that the Apex Health Logistics pitch… was never a pitch for a marketing campaign.”
I turned my head.
“What was it?”
Marcus Vance looked out through the panoramic windows toward the Rocky Mountains rising sharp and purple against the western sky:
“Apex Health Logistics isn’t a pharmaceutical client, Sebastian.”
“Apex is the primary covert medical extraction and sovereign asset recovery wing of the **Department of Defense’s Special Operations Logistics Command**.”
“Eleanor was the founder.”
“And that pitch deck you spent all night polishing… was your technical entrance examination.”
Marcus tapped the titanium key on the table:
