First, he regained control of his wrist. Then his arm. Four days later, he could hold his head up on his own.
“In the bottom drawer of my desk… there’s a burner phone,” Grant told me during the quiet hours of the night. “Nobody knows it exists.”
I found it tucked behind an old tax ledger.
Grant dictated a phone number. “It’s my personal attorney. Not the company lawyer. My own.”
We sent a short, encrypted text. Then I wiped the call log and hidden cache.
During the day, Grant played the part of a dying man perfectly. Whenever Julian walked into the room, Grant dropped his jaw, let his eyes go glassy, and stared blankly at the ceiling.
“I never knew acting like a corpse would be such a useful skill,” Grant whispered after one of Julian’s brief visits.
I had to cover my mouth to smother a laugh.