Chapter Fifty-Three
By midmorning the hum of the office felt different—edgier, more alert. Conversations had shorter tails, laughter truncated by careful glances. Briella noticed it the moment she stepped onto the floor: colleagues who usually nodded now kept their heads down; interns who once floated through meetings carried themselves like runners bracing at the starting line.
Clara met her at the elevator with a tablet pressed to her chest, eyes sharp and steady. “Good morning, Ms. Tristan. I pulled the access logs you asked for. There are two more anomalies—small, but persistent. A vendor portal was pinged from an internal IP, and a shipment manifest was edited after hours last night. I flagged timestamps and cross-checked sign-ins.” She handed Briella the tablet with quick, precise
