(Zara)
The whole floor had seen it by the time I stepped off the elevator.
I knew from the way the noise changed. Not louder, quieter, the kind of hush a room makes when everyone's pretending very hard not to look at the one person they're all looking at. Someone by the printers stopped mid sentence. Two women from finance found their screens fascinating. I kept my chin up and my pace even and walked to my desk like a woman who hadn't spent the drive in wondering how many of them had the photo saved.
I'd barely set my bag down when Priya appeared.
"He wants to see you," she said. Gentle, no drama. "Upstairs. Before anything else starts today. He was clear it should be first."
"Of course he was."
"Zara." She caught my arm, brief, kind. "Whatever you're bracing for, it isn't that. Go u
