The board meeting lasted four hours and twenty minutes.
Rafael texted her at one-fourteen: Done. Calling in five.
She'd been at the kitchen table with a nursing textbook open in front of her, reading the same paragraph about fluid management for the third time. She put the book face-down and waited.
Leonardo called at one-nineteen.
"The contract renewals are approved," he said. "Nine to zero."
She let out a breath she'd been holding since six-thirty.
"Nine to zero," she repeated.
"The three Mendes-adjacent members voted with the rest. Two of them had clearly been in conversations we didn't know about — their questions in the room were different from what Paulo predicted. More direct, less hostile. Something changed in the last forty-eight hours."
She thought about that. "What chang
