The first rule of power is knowing when you’ve stopped being the one who sets the rules.
I realize I’ve crossed that line three days after Geneva.
Not because anything explodes.
Because everything moves.
Simultaneously.
A defense committee in Brussels delays a contract I haven’t publicly pursued. A Southeast Asian regulator reverses a position overnight—one that had taken my people six months to negotiate. In New York, a hedge fund I’ve never dealt with quietly accumulates stock in one of my subsidiaries, just enough to matter, not enough to trigger alarms.
None of it is hostile.
All of it is deliberate.
“They’re circling,” my intelligence lead says during a secure call. “But not like predators.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like buyers.”
That word settles cold in my chest.
“Buyers of
