The city woke in a slow honeyed light, and for a heartbeat I believed the truce would hold. The card with my title—unyielding gold type—still sat in my bag like an amulet. It gave me a shape in the world: operations director, visible, documented. Visibility had saved us the last time someone tried to sell our private life as a scandal. It might not be enough forever, but that morning it felt like a thin, reliable armor.
Conley left before the sun finished yanking itself above the skyline. He kissed each of us in the corridor—a quick, private benediction—and his eyes held a weight I had learned to read. He was not carefree; he was a man who had decided this arrangement could be defended and, for a price, made sustainable. I wanted to believe in his strategy because believing steadied me. A
