The final twenty-six hours of the isolation test passed much more slowly than Darcy cared to admit.
She sat in her Risk Control Director's office, reviewing accounts as usual. On the surface, nothing had changed. Reports arrived on schedule, audit models ran without error, and every directive from the top floor came through encrypted executive channels—precise, efficient, entirely professional.
Asher followed the rules perfectly. That was somehow the most irritating part.
Darcy's gaze drifted toward the monitoring panel at the edge of her screen. She forced herself to look away, only to find her eyes straying back five minutes later. The system showed only baseline physiological data: heart rate trends, stress indicators, and executive activity logs. Nothing personal. Nothing that viola
