He got up, showered, and pulled on something comfortable, dark jeans, a clean white shirt. He went downstairs.

—---------

Makima’s apartment door was open when he reached her floor. She was at her kitchen table, two cups already poured, reading something on her laptop. She looked up when he knocked on the doorframe.

"You actually look rested," she said, genuine relief in her voice.

"Yes I think so" said Sean, sitting down across from her.

"Good." She pushed one of the cups toward him. "What happened last night? You said you’d tell me more today."

Sean wrapped his hands around the coffee cup and thought about how to frame it. He’d promised her honest information without unnecessary detail designed to scare her.

"I met the person running Lockhart Holdings," he said. "Her name is Vivian Castellan. She’s the one who’s been behind everything, Victor, the debt trap, all of it, for a long time."

Makima was quiet, watching him carefully.

"She offered me a partnership," said Sean. "She’s not interested in continuing a conflict. She wants to know what I am, because apparently a college freshman cracking her operation in two weeks is unusual enough to make her curious rather than just angry."

"A partnership," said Makima. "Meaning she wants you to work with her."

"Something like that," said Sean. "I didn’t accept. I didn’t reject. I told her I needed time to think."

Makima held her coffee cup without drinking from it. "Is she dangerous?"

"Yes," said Sean. "But not in the way Victor was dangerous. Victor was afraid of exposure. She’s not afraid of anything I’ve found yet, except maybe one thing I’m still trying to understand."

"What thing?" said Makima.

"Something personal," said Sean. "I’ll know more when Max finishes digging."

Makima was quiet for a moment. Then: "She mentioned the building? She agreed to leave it alone?"

"She said disrupted operations get abandoned," said Sean. "She’s not interested in revisiting Victor’s acquisition." He held Makima’s gaze. "I believe her on that specific point. Not because she’s trustworthy, but because it’s not worth her time. She’s operating at a scale where your building genuinely isn’t significant enough to spend more energy on."

Something complicated moved through Makima’s expression. Sean could see the strange mix of relief and indignation that came with being told something you loved was too small to bother fighting over.

"That’s oddly comforting and slightly offensive," she said finally.

"Yeah," said Sean. "That was my reaction too."

She looked at him for a moment. Then she let out a long, slow breath and picked up her coffee. "Thank you. For coming back in one piece." She paused. "Again."

"Getting better at it," said Sean.

Makima almost smiled. "Don’t get too confident."

========================

After chatting with Makima for a while, Sean found himself in a much better mood. He returned to his apartment, picked up his phone, and called Max.

"Tell me everything," said Max, answering immediately, his voice closer to its usual flatness after actual sleep.

Sean walked him through the meeting in detail. Max listened without interrupting, and Sean could hear the quiet sound of typing in the background, Max clearly building a new document as Sean spoke.

When Sean finished, Max was quiet for a moment.

"She identified me," said Max. Not a question. He’d caught the part about Vivian wanting to know who was helping Sean.

"She just suspects that I have a very reliable information broker," Sean said. "She has no idea who you really are."

"Yet," said Max.

"Yet," Sean agreed. "She agreed to pull back the surveillance on the building. I agreed to pull back Walsh’s coverage of her people. That’s where things stand."

"I don’t love that arrangement," said Max. "It assumes she’ll hold her end."

"She will," said Sean. "Not out of good faith. Because she wants the partnership more than she wants leverage right now. Maintaining the surveillance after agreeing to stop would undermine the very thing she’s trying to build with me."

"You’re starting to think like her," said Max. There was something careful in his voice when he said it. Not quite a warning. Just an observation.

"I’m thinking like someone trying to stay ahead of her," said Sean. "There’s a difference."

"Make sure it stays that way," said Max.

Sean appreciated that about Max. He didn’t hedge it. Just said it plainly.

"The personal transfer," said Sean. "The daughter. Have you made any more progress identifying the account?"

"Some," said Max. "I have a partial banking trail. It’s routing through three different institutions before it lands. Whoever set it up wanted it disconnected from Vivian entirely. I’ll have more by tonight probably."

"Don’t rush," said Sean. "Sleep is more valuable right now than speed."

"I slept six hours," said Max. "I’m basically a new person."

"Six hours once after four days of nothing is not the same as being rested," said Sean.

"Fair," said Max. "I’ll take breaks. But Sean, if this transfer connects to what I think it might connect to, you’re going to want to know sooner rather than later."

"What do you think it connects to," said Sean.

A pause. "Let me confirm first. I don’t want to send you in a wrong direction before I’m sure."

Sean filed that away. Whatever Max was tracking, it was significant enough that he was being careful about sharing it too early.

"Okay," said Sean. "I have something this afternoon. Talk tonight."

"What kind of something?" said Max.

"I’m meeting my friend’s manager," said Sean.

A pause. "A music manager?"

"Idol agency," said Sean.

Another pause, longer this time. "You have a very diverse week."

"You have no idea," said Sean.

=========

He spent the late morning reviewing his investment positions, the Business Insight skill running quietly in the background of his thinking, flagging patterns and opportunities the way it always did now.

One of his three investments from the day he’d walked into Crestline Financial Solutions had already started moving. The pharmaceutical company whose treatment approval he’d predicted was showing early momentum in premarket trading, analysts starting to pick up the story, the information asymmetry he’d bet on beginning to close.