I hung up and stared out at the dark Chicago skyline.

The name Vanguard Sterling Trust didn’t sound right.

I opened my laptop and typed a quick email to Sarah Jenkins, a forensic accountant I had retained during my divorce proceedings.

*Sarah, can you run a quiet background check on an entity called Vanguard Sterling Trust out of London?* I wrote.

I closed the laptop and walked out to the elevators.

The cold Chicago wind hit me the moment I stepped onto Michigan Avenue.

It felt clean compared to the air in Boston.

I walked three blocks to the small corporate apartment the foundation had rented for me.

The rooms were modern, minimalist, and quiet.

I spent the evening drawing the structural details for Julian’s residential tower.

The work came easily to me now that the noise of Adrian’s constant demands was gone.

At midnight, my laptop chimed with an incoming email.

It was from Sarah Jenkins.

I opened the message, expecting a standard corporate profile.

Instead, there was only a brief paragraph and an attached spreadsheet of registration dates.

My phone rang a second later.