Chapter 653: A Polite Enemy

By the time the investigation reached a polite enemy, Freya knew the next confrontation would be fought as much through public perception as through evidence. Victor greets Louis warmly in front of cameras and treats Freya with exaggerated courtesy.

Derek's team had prepared for that possibility. Verified records were duplicated with counsel, technical findings were documented by independent specialists, and no single person controlled the only copy of anything important. Louis had learned from the first collapse what happened when too much depended on private trust.

His performance makes clear he intends to frame any hostility from them as paranoia.

Freya's own preparation was simpler. She would not allow Victor Hale to force her into defending claims she could not prove. Her awakening remained real to her, but she had no laboratory result capable of demonstrating transmigration to strangers. The corporate evidence did not require one.

That distinction gave her unexpected calm.

Victor could mock impossible memories. He could question old research. He could point out every gap in the Crosswind archive. None of that changed bank transfers, intercepted warnings, paid intermediaries, or authenticated messages about separating her from Louis.

Louis understood the strategy and, more importantly, did not replace it with his own. He had opinions about how Victor should be handled, many of them probably expensive, but he allowed counsel and investigators to lead.

Their marriage had become stronger in precisely these unglamorous moments. Trust no longer meant believing the other person would always make the right decision. It meant knowing mistakes and risks would not be hidden behind a reassuring smile.

Sunroom and Awake Stories continued moving without Freya supervising every hour. That fact mattered more than she expected. She had built teams capable of functioning while her attention was divided, proof that her new life was no longer a collection of temporary projects.

The cultural center's interior work had entered its most visible phase. Photographs from the site showed restored masonry beside the new structural interventions. Freya saved one image to her phone because the building looked exactly like what she wanted her own life to become: not restored to an untouched past, but strengthened without hiding the repairs.

At Awake Stories, the first books from the new imprint entered production. Claire sent Freya a message complaining about an author who had changed the ending three times.

Freya replied that at least the author was allowed to.

Claire sent back a row of laughing symbols.

The joke stayed with Freya.

For so long, she had treated written outcomes as threats. Now she increasingly saw revision as evidence of freedom. A draft could exist without becoming law. A prediction could fail. A person could change enough that an old profile became useless.

The hidden manuscript remained sealed even as Project Wake moved closer to the center of the investigation. Freya would not contaminate the evidence by reading future headings and then unconsciously steering toward or away from them.

Mercer supported that decision. Evelyn did too.

Louis had stopped asking.

That evening, Freya opened her notebook and reviewed the path from the first strange file to the current evidence. The story had widened from one woman's impossible awakening into decades of research, greed, prediction, manipulation, and people trying to turn uncertainty into control.

Yet one question remained stubbornly personal.

How had information from her previous life reached this world?

For the first time in months, the evidence seemed close to touching that question directly.

Authorities were now involved in several parts of the financial investigation, reducing the risk that Louis's private resources could shape the outcome. Freya considered that essential if any eventual conclusion was going to survive public scrutiny.

Freya wrote the newest fact in ink.

Then she left the interpretation blank.

She had waited this long.

She could wait until the evidence earned an answer.