The morning air in the Ashford estate was thick with tension, almost viscous, as if the city itself had absorbed the tremor from Elara’s decision. Her manifesto private, anonymized, but utterly authoritative was already circulating through channels Victor could not fully monitor. Yet the reverberations hit faster than anticipated.
Lucien observed the first ripple before she did.
A series of terse calls from board members, carefully couched as concern, began arriving in his office. Each one was polite and formal, but the subtext was unmistakable: Why is Ashford Global tolerating this instability?
He didn’t pick up the first three. He let the messages build. The fourth came from the chairman, someone who had never spoken directly to Elara but had now learned enough to be unsettled.
“Sir,
