The mediation room was all glass and sterile quiet, the kind of corporate neutrality designed to make people behave. A long table sat in the center, water pitchers untouched, chairs angled like soldiers waiting for orders. It smelled like air conditioning and expensive wood varnish. The type of room where decisions didn’t just shift, they detonated. But Sari wasn’t there. Sylvia Howard walked in instead, elegant in a soft navy dress, the kind of presence that forced respect without raising a voice. Sari was already in the air, flying back to London, back to the life she fought for. She wasn’t running. She was choosing peace over war, and Mariella couldn’t blame her.
Matthew Elizalde’s chair sat empty too. Of course he didn’t show. Men like him rarely looked at consequences directly. They
