I'm back at the morning of the trial that puts me away for a crime I didn't commit.

By the end of our first year in business, Lane Forensic & Compliance Solutions had become the gold standard for institutional auditing and white-collar defense across the United States.

We hadn't just exposed Sterling & Vance; our work had triggered a sweeping, nationwide federal review of municipal pension fund management, resulting in over two hundred indictments of corrupt corporate executives, fraudulent auditors, and compromised political fixers.

On a crisp autumn afternoon exactly one year to the day since my sham trial in Courtroom 302, I stood by the stone railing of the Foley Square courthouse steps, looking across the paved plaza toward the entrance where my nightmare had begun.

The rain was gone. The sky was a brilliant, unblemished canopy of cobalt blue.

Arthur Miller walked up beside me, handing me a paper cup of hot coffee from the cart down the block.

"You know, Marcus," the veteran attorney said, taking a sip of his own coffee and looking up at the courthouse dome. "If someone had told me twelve months ago that a junior accountant from Queens would completely rewrite federal white-collar sentencing guidelines, I would have told them they were out of their mind."

"Systems don't fix themselves, Arthur," I replied, wrapping my hands around the warm paper cup. "Somebody has to check the math."

My phone buzzed in the pocket of my wool coat.

I pulled it out. It was a secure text notification from the federal penitentiary at Marion, Illinois.

AUTOMATED PRISON REGISTRY UPDATE: INMATE #88412-054 (VANCE, JULIAN)

STATUS: TRANSFER TO MAXIMUM SECURITY SOLITARY CONFINEMENT CONFIRMED.

REASON: ATTEMPTED BRIBERY OF CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS.

I swiped the notification away, locked the screen, and slipped the phone back into my pocket without a second thought.

Julian Vance was a ghost haunting a concrete box three states away. He no longer possessed the power to hurt anyone, steal anything, or buy anyone's silence.

"Come on," I said, clapping Arthur on the shoulder. "Let's head back to the office. Clara’s running the afternoon compliance briefing for the new interns, and I want to make sure they all know rule number one."