“We’ve maintained it.”
“How long have you had these documents?”
“Since yesterday.”
Marcus looked at Sky.
“You didn’t know any of this existed.”
“No.”
“And Renata Voss has an emergency hearing scheduled for the day after tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
Marcus put his glasses back on his forehead.
He leaned back and stared at the ceiling for four seconds.
Sky quickly learned that when Marcus looked at the ceiling, his mind was moving too quickly for eye contact.
“The conditional guardianship approval is real.”
He spoke to the ceiling first.
“It is dated.”
Marcus lowered his gaze.
“The court that approved it still exists.”
“The judge who signed it is retired, but alive.”
He tapped the paper.
“The filing will still be in the county system.”
Marcus leaned forward.
“What Renata is doing relies on portraying Luther’s estate as having no meaningful direction and you as an eighteen-year-old without stable housing or support.”
He paused.
“There is some truth to the instability.”
Sky said nothing.
“But she is wrong about the reason.”
Marcus touched Luther’s filing.
“This changes the character of that instability.”
He looked directly at Sky.
“Luther was not absent from your life.”
“He was actively trying to become legally responsible for you.”
Marcus folded his hands.
“The fact that he disappeared before the process was completed is not abandonment.”
He paused.
“It is interruption.”
“Interruption?”
“Involuntary interruption of a valid legal process already in progress.”
Marcus nodded.
“Intent was established.”
“The process was real.”
“And while that does not automatically decide everything, it substantially changes the story Renata wants to tell.”
Marcus looked at Gregory.
“I need the entire storage unit cataloged.”
“Every canvas.”
“Every document.”
“The motorcycle.”
“All of it.”
“Done.”
“I need photographs of Sky’s work since she arrived at Garland’s.”
Gregory frowned.
“She’s been there two days.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Marcus pointed toward Sky.
“Stable is a direction, not only a duration.”
He turned back toward Sky.
“And you need to understand what’s coming.”
Sky waited.
“Renata is going to walk into that hearing and describe you as a vulnerable young woman who has been taken in by a motorcycle club with a complicated legal history.”
“She is going to call the environment unsafe.”
Marcus tapped the desk.
“She will say it smoothly.”
“She will have documents.”
“She will not be stupid about it.”
“I know.”
Marcus narrowed his eyes.
“She’s done this before?”
“She tried it with Luther.”
Sky folded her arms.
“When he was twenty-two.”
“She thought he was getting too close to my mother’s finances.”
“She filed a competency challenge.”
Marcus’s eyebrows rose.
“It took Luther’s lawyer eight months to get it dismissed.”
Sky paused.
“He told me about it when I was fifteen.”
She remembered his exact words.
“Sky, learn this. Renata doesn’t fight to win. She fights to exhaust.”
Sky looked at Marcus.
“She makes something cost so much time, money, and energy that people surrender.”
Marcus studied her.
“How do you know she won’t exhaust you?”
Sky answered immediately.
“Because I’ve been running for fourteen months and I’m still here.”
Then she glanced toward Gregory.