The private elevator ride to the twenty-fourth floor was a study in absolute, suffocating silence.
Elara stood in the front corner of the glass-walled car, her back to me, her posture so rigid it looked like she might shatter under the slightest pressure. She hadn't said a word since the lobby, but I could hear the sharp, uneven rhythm of her breathing.
When the doors slid open, she marched directly to her mahogany desk. She didn't sit. She paced, her heels clicking against the hardwood like gunfire.
"A trillion dollars," she said, her voice dripping with an icy, controlled rage. She stopped, turning to face me. The mask of the CEO was firmly in place, but I could see the cracks—the slight tremor in her hand as she straightened a stack of files. "She wasn't just offering you money, Luca
