Liam Hawthorne didn’t sleep that night. Not really. The city outside his glass tower shimmered with a deceptive calm, a false lull before the storms he intended to unleash. Ava remained at his side, perched on the edge of the conference table, her presence a tether to the world he refused to lose himself to entirely. She hadn’t protested, hadn’t begged for a break, because she understood him. She understood the calculation behind the chaos, the need to strike before being struck again.
By dawn, Hawthorne Tower was a hive of quiet, controlled fury. Traders tapped into their terminals like surgeons wielding scalpels, monitoring every ripple Cassian’s attacks could cause. Legal teams scrolled through court filings, preparing counters that would invalidate Cassian’s shadow injunctions. Analys
