The board vote was in thirty-six hours.
For two weeks, Damian had been running on the specific fuel of someone who has replaced adequate sleep with sheer determined competence, leaving before six, returning after midnight, present in the penthouse only in the acoustic sense: footsteps, the elevator, the quiet of his office light visible under the door when I came out for water at two in the morning.
I knew the shape of the preparation even if I wasn't part of it. Claire had forwarded me two things at his request a summary of Marlene Cho's publicly stated concerns about the Newcastle site, which I had already addressed, and a timeline of the board's opposition that was laid out with the precise, chronological clarity of someone who organized threats the way I organized structural assess
