The board's decision arrived on a Friday, not through Dr. Whitley's promised phone call, but through an all-campus email that landed in every inbox simultaneously, stripping Adrian of any chance to control how the news reached the people who mattered.
*Effective immediately, Professor Adrian Cole (Coleman) has been placed on administrative leave pending a full review of undisclosed conflicts of interest.*
Elena read it twice before it registered, sitting in the back of a seminar she was supposed to be attending, heads turning around her as the same email lit up dozens of phones at once, a low murmur rippling through the room that she felt rather than clearly heard, her ears ringing faintly with the particular shock of watching something feared finally arrive in writing.
She left before
