Elena walked past Adrian and he returned to sit alone in the boardroom immediately. He remained seated long after the doors closed behind her, the silence around him heavy enough to feel physical. The empty chair at the head of the table seemed different now. Smaller. Not because the room had changed but because his understanding of it had. His eyes drifted slowly toward the stack of documents left behind during the meeting. Most of them were standard operational files. Financial adjustments. Internal restructuring. Shareholder approvals. Normal, except nothing felt normal anymore.
Adrian reached for the top document slowly. Almost reluctantly because some part of him already knew that whatever came next would only confirm what he was trying not to fully accept.
He opened the file. The f
