Clara's strategy was three pages.
Aria read it at nine thirty over coffee she'd made in her apartment after three hours of sleep that felt like thirty minutes. Clean, rested enough, her brain running at the particular clarity of someone who had slept briefly but deeply.
The strategy was elegant.
Instead of fighting the shareholder meeting — which would generate exactly the public chaos Richard wanted — Clara proposed something different. Get ahead of it. Ethan would call his own press conference first. Release the fraud documentation publicly before Richard could frame the narrative. Turn the shareholder meeting from an ambush into a formality.
He who controls the story controls the outcome, Clara had written at the top of page one.
Aria read it twice. Then she called Clara.
"It's go
