The photograph sat on the study desk like a sleeping animal, small and still and full of teeth. Even when the house moved in its ordinary ways—coffee being poured, a staff elevator humming, the distant squeak of a cleaner’s cart—the image kept pulling at the edges of my attention. I had played this role long enough to know how quickly small things metastasized in Conley’s orbit. A smear of ink, a careless word, a single image: any of it could be a fuse.
Conley called the morning briefing fifteen minutes early. The staff arrived with that lithe efficiency I’d trained them into; they filed into the room like a precision unit. Security, legal, PR—everyone Conley trusted in some official capacity. Angel hovered at the periphery, steady, composed, her notepad open like a shield. I walked in be
