Justin's POV
The city at 7:00 a.m. was a kingdom awaiting its king. From the floor-to-ceiling windows of my office, the world below was just stirring, a machine slowly coming to life, its gears and cogs beginning to turn. I was always here to witness it, to feel the hum of potential before the day’s chaos began. It was a ritual of control. But this morning, the usual calm was absent. In its place was a low, thrumming anticipation that felt dangerously close to agitation. Anne Idia. I was really anticipating the meeting we were going to have today.
Her name was a ghost in the machinery of my mind, a variable I had not accounted for, a glitch in the pristine code of my existence. The memory of Friday evening was a persistent, vivid stain on my consciousness. The shock in her eyes. The way
