The call came in on a Tuesday, ten days into the quiet Julian had chosen, and I knew from the particular gray stillness of his face when he hung up that whatever peace we'd built over that stretch had just run directly into the wall Marcus had warned us about all along.
"Desmond's back," he said, setting the phone down with a control that didn't quite mask how rattled he actually was. "Not on the board — he can't return there, not after the drone and the leak. But he's spent the last two weeks quietly courting three institutional shareholders, framing my silence over the last ten days as exactly the kind of instability he predicted in the emergency session. He's filing for a proxy fight, Harper. He wants a shareholder vote on my leadership."
"Can he actually win?"
"Two weeks ago, no. To
