My brother slammed me onto the marble floor, then kicked Atlas—the dog who had been my eyes for years. “Sign over your empire, or I burn your adoptive parents alive in the basement,” he hissed. I tasted blood, heard Atlas whimper, and smiled. “You always thought blindness made me helpless.” I didn’t beg. I pressed one hidden button beneath my bracelet… and somewhere in the darkness, six kennel doors clicked open. - True Stories

“A package?” I asked, my brow furrowing slightly as I sat up in my chair. “Did it go through the standard X-ray and chemical screening at the gatehouse?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Vance replied, stepping closer. “It’s completely clean. No explosives, no biological agents. It’s just a standard, heavy-stock manila envelope. But there’s no return address, and the postage stamps are international. European, by the looks of it.”

I held out my hand. Vance placed the envelope gently into my palm. It was thick, heavy, and sealed with what felt like traditional wax on the back flap.

Atlas let out a low, inquisitive huff, pushing his wet nose against the paper, sniffing it thoroughly before lying his head back down on his paws. He didn't alert, which meant he didn't smell anyone familiar or dangerous on the paper.

“Open it for me,” I instructed, handing it back to Vance.

I heard the sharp tear of thick paper, followed by the rustling of documents being pulled free.

“It looks like a legal dossier,” Vance muttered, his tone shifting into his professional, analytical mode. “Lots of financial spreadsheets, offshore account routing numbers, and corporate registries. And… a single handwritten letter.”

“Read the letter, Vance.”

He cleared his throat. “It says: ‘Dear Maya. Congratulations on the swift and brutal removal of your brother. He was a loud, messy amateur, and he entirely deserved his fate. However, in your righteous crusade to seize his assets and freeze his accounts, you inadvertently disrupted a much larger, much quieter ecosystem.’”