Page 101 of Split Decision

Luke is quiet for a moment. "I told him I'd never heard the name."

"Neither had I." I look at the card again. "He's been watching. Long enough to know our home address. Long enough to know the center's address. Long enough to know when to send this."

"Three days ago," Luke says. "After Vegas. After the accident became public."

I hear what he's saying. The timing isn't coincidental. Daniel sent this because something in the last weeks told him the window was closing—or opening. That we were either about to understand something or about to be destroyed before we could.

I set the card down and open the documentfile.

The first page is a memo.

Dated 2011. No agency letterhead—the kind of document that was always meant to exist outside official channels. The subject line reads:

Crisis Containment Strategy—Morgan Family / Juvenile Matter

The language is clean. Professional. Precise. Perfect.

I've read documents like this before—in the years since I started understanding what was done to me, I've learned to recognize the genre. The careful euphemisms. The way violence gets described in administrative language until it sounds like policy. Narrative management. Source credibility assessment. Proactive reputational framework.

I read the first paragraph and feel the specific chill of recognition, not surprise.

The subject's credibility must be addressed before formal proceedings.

Given the subject's history of institutional placement and documented instability, early narrative formation is essential. Introduce skepticism through proximate channels.

Public doubt, once seeded, does not require verification to sustain itself.

Discredit the source before anyone asks for proof.

That last line.

I've heard that line. Not from this document—I've never seen this document before—but from a voice. In a boardroom. From a woman who said it like it was a strategy and not history repeating.

Discredit the source before anyone asks for proof.

"Luke." My voice comes out quieter than I intend.

He's already reading over my shoulder. I feel him go still.

I turn to the signature block at the bottom of the memo.

Strategic Crisis Consulting Group—E. Carrington, Principal.

Below it: a list of recipients. Jackson Rhoades. Two names I don't recognize. One name that will take me a moment to place, because I know it from a different context, from a different decade, from a conversation about governance and oversight and the right people in the right positions.

I place it.

I look at Luke.

"The Athletic Commission," I say.

He takes the document from me and reads the recipient list. His jaw tightens, as if he’s holding very still, because the alternative would be even worse.

"She's on the Commission's advisory board," he says. His voice is careful. Measured. "She's been on it for seven years. Marin mentioned her once—I almost didn't register the name?—"

"Marin mentioned her."

He looks at me.