Even though no one officially said anything, everyone on the executive floors quietly noticed that the nights in Ashford Tower were starting to follow a pattern. The lights in the strategy wing didn't go out at the usual time anymore.
Before they left, assistants learned to leave papers in neat stacks, knowing that those pages would be looked at long after the rest of the building had emptied. Without being told to, security personnel changed their shifts while still being respectful of the unspoken line around the room where decisions were being made in silence.
At the centre of that quiet shift were two individuals who did not speak about the change, yet continued to return to the same space, night after night, as though the rhythm itself had become necessary.
Seraphina Vale and Lucien Ashford no longer needed to schedule their late hours.
They simply arrived.
