Ava's POV
I was tired. Not the kind of tired that a cup of coffee could fix, but the heavy kind that clung to my bones like wet fabric, dragging me down with every movement. My shoulders slumped beneath the weight of it, and my head throbbed faintly from staring at spreadsheets all day, the columns of numbers blurring together until they were nothing but meaningless rows of black and white.
Even my eyes burned, gritty from hours under the artificial light.
My body begged me to collapse into bed the moment I got home, to pull the covers over my head and forget the world for a few hours. But I was still in my office, still surrounded by the faint smell of fresh ink and polish from the desk I worked on. The desk was wide and commanding, the kind of piece that screamed authority, but ton
