The high-rise headquarters of Christian’s investment firm stood like a monument of glass and steel against the skyline of Manhattan. On the top floor, the main boardroom was bathed in the crisp, bright light of Thursday morning. The atmosphere was charged with a different kind of energy today. It was no longer a space where survival was negotiated; it was a space where the future was actively being redesigned.
Casel sat at the head of the long, polished conference table. For the first time in her life, she wasn't sitting there as Zeth’s wife, nor was she sitting there as a quiet observer seeking protection. She sat there as the sovereign owner of a thirty-four percent blocking minority in the newly restructured North American Maritime Alliance, the company that had risen from the ashes of
