Chapter 22
Lucien's panic was a silent, frantic vibration that filled the entire office. You couldn't hear it, but you could feel it, like the hum of a machine pushed too hard. He called his assistant, Margot, three times in five minutes, his voice getting sharper each time. The original feasibility reports. The raw data. They were supposed to be a dead file, a messy first draft that had long since been corrected, polished, and turned into the beautiful, shiny lie of the official presentation.
But Lucien knew exactly what was in those early reports. And so did Ziva.
Her own notes. Her early, practical critiques. Questions about material costs scribbled in the narrow margins. Alternative supplier names circled in pencil. The word "overengineered?" written lightly beside a drawing of a co
