It should’ve felt like any other morning. But it didn’t. Sure, the office buzzed with the soft hum of Monday morning — phones ringing in the background, printers humming, the faint scent of coffee lingering in the air. My mind kept drifting back to the weekend — the laughter, the warmth, the easy rhythm Ahmir and I had fallen into. The way he’d moved through my family’s world, like he’d always been part of it. It fit too well, too easily.
And yet, beneath the surface, something in me stayed alert. A shadow I couldn’t shake, the edge of suspicion that always lingered. My instincts had been honed over years of building this company, surviving in rooms where men underestimated me. And something in me whispered that Ahmir wasn’t exempt from that scrutiny. His charm, his attentiveness, the way
