Chapter thirty seven
*The Refund*
Naomi Louis sat in her office, a gilded cage high above the gallery floor. The silence was a relief after the echoing humiliation of the Lax dinner. Here, she was still in control. Here, the numbers on the spreadsheets obeyed her. She was studying the quarterly losses—losses that had deepened since Lyra’s departure—when her intercom buzzed, sharp and intrusive.
“Madam? There’s… a woman here to see you. Downstairs. She insists it’s urgent. Regarding a… a refund.”
Naomi’s blood ran cold. A refund. The word was a tripwire in her mind, connected directly to the dock, to Mr. Cho, to the billion that had vanished from her grasp. Her fingers, holding a gold-plated pen, went stiff.
“What does she look like?” Naomi’s voice was tighter than she intended.
“For
