Lydia POV
The world doesn’t end loudly.
It updates.
I realize that while standing in Adrian’s penthouse living room, watching Hale Global unravel in real time across six silent television screens mounted on the marble wall.
Red numbers crawl downward.
Breaking news banners multiply.
Financial analysts speak with controlled excitement, the way people do when witnessing a disaster that doesn’t belong to them.
COLE ASSUMES CONTROL OF HALE GLOBAL.
EMERGENCY BOARD VOTE CONFIRMED.
MARCUS HALE STEPS DOWN AS ACTING CEO.
The headlines rotate endlessly, each one sharper than the last.
I should feel satisfied.
Seven years of humiliation should taste like victory.
Instead, I feel… still.
Behind me, the apartment hums quietly. Staff moves somewhere in the distance, careful and invisible.
