The 50th floor was quieter than Elena had ever heard it.
By eight a.m., word of Serena's confession had rippled through Vance Enterprises in the particular hushed, electric way scandal always did — not shouted, but passed mouth to mouth in the elevator bank, in the break room, in the two-second pause before someone said good morning like nothing had happened. Serena's desk on the 44th floor sat empty, her nameplate already gone. Mark's office, three doors down from Elena's, had a strip of security tape across the handle that nobody bothered to explain.
Elena stood at the floor-to-ceiling window of her own office, coffee cooling in her hand, watching the city wake up beneath her like nothing at all had nearly ended her career the week before.
"You're doing the thing," Priya said from the
