In the quiet, climate-controlled luxury of the high-rise office, Lora Hale stared at Ace Kane for what felt like an eternity. To her ears, his casual proclamation—his "temporary goal" of catapulting their firm into the Fortune Global 500 within thirty-six months—sounded like the punchline to a very expensive, very absurd joke. It reminded her of the famous "Small Goal" meme circulating among the billionaire class, where the elite discussed nine-figure sums with the same gravity most people reserved for choosing a lunch special. She was well aware that the companies on that list were titans of industry, sovereign entities with global supply chains and GDPs that rivaled small nations.
She looked for a glint of sarcasm in his eyes, but she found only a steady, predatory clarity. She knew tha
