The message stays on my phone screen long enough for the silence to thicken around us.
If you attend that board meeting tomorrow, you won’t walk out.
I read it twice.
Three times.
The words don’t change.
They don’t soften.
My fingers tighten slightly around the phone.
Adrian notices immediately.
“What is it?”
I turn the screen toward him. His eyes scan the message. For a moment, nothing happens. Then something dark settles into his expression.
Not fear.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
“They’re escalating,” he says quietly.
“You don’t seem shocked.”
“I’m not.”
My stomach twists. “You expected death threats?”
“In corporate takeovers of this scale?” he says calmly. “Yes.”
“That’s comforting.”
Adrian takes the phone gently from my hand. His thumb moves across the screen, tracing
