Chase’s POV
The lawyer’s office smelled like fresh coffee and old paper—comforting in a way I hadn’t expected. We sat around a polished conference table on the 38th floor of Hudson Tower: Amelia beside me, our hands linked under the table; two advisors across from us—Markus’s longtime estate attorney and a trust specialist who’d been handling the doubled shares since the council ruling. Folders lay open between us, spreadsheets glowing on tablets, numbers that once felt like chains now looked like possibilities.
The attorney slid the final distribution summary toward me.
“Everything is settled,” he said. “The Hudson Properties Portfolio shares are fully transferred. The family trust is funded and secured—multi-layered encryption, dual-signature access, offshore diversification for stabi
