Power rarely collapsed all at once.
It eroded.
Quietly. Relentlessly. From the inside out.
Lucien felt it the moment he stepped into the building that morning. The air was different—too careful, too alert. Conversations lowered when he passed. Assistants looked up from their desks a fraction too late.
They were watching.
Waiting.
He didn’t flinch.
Waiting rooms had never frightened him. He had built his career inside them.
Still, he understood something had shifted overnight.
Jonathan’s maneuver had failed—but failure never stopped men like him. It simply redirected them.
Lucien entered his office and closed the door behind him, loosening his cufflinks slowly, deliberately. Control began with the body. If he moved calmly, others would follow.
His phone vibrated.
Elias.
“They’r
