The day after mediation, Mariella arrived at the office earlier than usual.
Silence was waiting for her. Not peace. Strategy.
Ardent Lex still hadn’t responded.
Not to her emails. Not to her proposed timetable. Not even to the standard notice of joint filing.
A paralegal had sent the electronically filed stamp and then disappeared into the void. Every update she expected from Paul Razon evaporated like mist.
Paul was not a man who ignored procedure. He did not miss deadlines. He weaponized precision.
He filed at dawn. Emailed revisions at midnight. Lived and breathed efficiency.
Silence was not his default. Which meant this was deliberate.
He wasn’t forgetting. He was choosing.
Mariella refreshed her inbox again, knowing the result before the screen refreshed. No new message. No r
