Liam said nothing.
“That was stupid.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“It was survival.”
“I used to investigate fraud cases where executives deleted emails after receiving preservation orders. Do you know what I would tell them?”
He shook his head.
“That timing matters. That delay destroys options.”
A tear slipped into my hair.
“I knew that.”
“You understood it professionally.”
“I should have understood it personally.”
Liam leaned forward.
“No. You do not get to turn this into another file you’ve mishandled.”
I closed my eyes.
His voice softened.
“You were inside it, Maya.”
For a while, neither of us spoke.
When Priya returned, she told me I would be admitted overnight for observation.
Liam objected to nothing.
That frightened me more than if he had argued.
He was normally incapable of letting a colleague finish a sentence about my health without asking three questions.
But now he sat silently while Priya discussed concussion monitoring, pain management, and follow-up imaging.
