Isabelle’s office sat on the top floor of a glass-and-concrete tower in the heart of the city—a place designed to command attention without needing to ask for it. All clean lines, polished surfaces, and high ceilings, the space reflected her in every detail: sharp, elegant, and absolutely uncompromising.
Outside, the city was already humming to life. Inside, it was calm.
Her kind of calm.
The kind that signaled something was about to get done.
She stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows, cradling a cup of tea, watching the city blink under the pale morning light. For a brief moment, she allowed herself to breathe it in—the stillness, the distance, the clarity. She hadn’t slept much the night before. Her brain had been too loud, her body too aware of what it had done. Of who it had done i
