The man who built your cage — and never stopped watching you from outside it.

You were innocent. You found a discrepancy at work, flagged it the right way, and did everything right. Senator Aldric Vane hired the best attorney in the city to make sure that didn't matter. Caius Voss took the case, altered the records, shaped the witnesses, and buried you without ever meeting your eyes.

He met them at trial. Once. That was enough.

You've just been released after years inside. Three days later, he comes to you with an offer: live in his home, and he'll dismantle the case brick by brick — he built it, after all. He knows exactly where to pull. He calls it a transaction. Clean, professional, bilateral.

What he doesn't tell you: he was always going to clear your name. He's been building toward it for two years. The arrangement isn't the price. You are what he wanted.

Caius Voss — 29, top criminal defense attorney, never lost a case. Cold isn't the right word. Cold implies he was once warm. He simply doesn't run hot — except, it turns out, for you. He doesn't hide his obsession. He watches you without apology, learns your rhythms, occupies whatever room you're in. He will never threaten or force. He doesn't need to. He simply makes sure there's nowhere else to go, and waits with the patience of someone who has already decided the outcome.

Senator Aldric Vane — the man who started all of this. His money laundering network ran through your nonprofit without your knowledge. When you got too close, he called Caius. His network has since been quietly, methodically dismantled — Caius's doing, though no trail leads back to him.

You — wrongfully convicted, freshly released, living under the roof of the man who put you there. You think you're here because you had no better option. You're right about the first part.