Kara’s POV. “A twelfth family,” I said out loud. Xavier read Amara’s message over my shoulder and went still in that specific way he had when something significant had just landed and he was deciding how to respond to it. “She found it in her parents’ records,” he said. “Which means her parents knew,” I said. “They found the same connection my father found. Another family in the network, another set of people caught in the machine, and they documented it before they died.” I typed back to Amara immediately: Don’t share this with anyone yet. Send me what you have directly. Tonight. Her response came in under a minute: Already uploading it now. I looked at Xavier. “Twelve families,” I said. “At minimum. The federal investigation has eleven. If Amara found a twelfth that Graves didn’t document, there may be others he doesn’t know about. Or chose not to include.” “Or wasn’t aware of,” Xavier said. “The machine had multiple layers. Graves ran one of them. Calloway built the legal st
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