Priya looked at me. She looked at Damien. She looked at Marcus, who was eating something that smelled like it had no business being as good as it smelled.
"All right," she said. "Let's move."
The next four hours were the kind of four hours that aged you in the specific way that high-stakes compressed time aged people — not in years, in understanding. You came out the other side knowing more about what you were made of than you had going in.
At nine AM, the planning board office opened.
At nine-oh-three, Priya's objection hit the public record.
At nine-oh-four, Simone Achike's article went live on the Crestholm Business Ledger website. The headline read: SHELL COMPANY NETWORK TIED TO PREDATORY LENDING SCHEME ACROSS 38 CRESTHOLM PROPERTIES — INTERNAL DOCUMENTS REVEAL 15-YEAR OPERATION.
