kiddo

To Maria Bandini, a brilliant but cynical science student, human relationships are a failed experiment. She trusts only in data, building a fortress of solitude to protect herself from the ghost of her charismatic, unreliable father. But when he calls after three years of silence with a devastating request, her carefully controlled world is breached, and the chaos she has spent her life outrunning is at the door.

Fueled by years of righteous anger, Maria prepares for a final confrontation, determined to expose his plea as the ultimate con. But the truth she uncovers is far more complex than her data predicted, forcing her to confront a terrifying possibility: that the walls she built to keep the world out have become a prison. To survive, Maria must turn her sharp, analytical mind inward. She must learn that in the chaotic ecosystem of the human heart, control is an illusion, and the only way to be free is to risk the one thing she has sworn off forever: trust.