The Jefferson Memorial sat like a marble temple in the midnight darkness, its columns casting long shadows across the Tidal Basin where my uncle waited to explain thirty years of betrayal. I approached on foot, my security detail invisible among the tourists and joggers who somehow still populated Washington's monuments even at this hour.
Sebastian stood with his back to Jefferson's statue, a silhouette that triggered memories I'd thought were buried beyond recovery. Taller than I remembered, silver-haired now, wearing the kind of expensive coat that suggested decades of prosperity built on my family's destruction. When he turned toward my footsteps, his smile was exactly as I remembered from childhood—warm, charming, and completely predatory.
"Blair." His voice carried the same cultured
