The acquisition agreement arrived at 8:17 on a Thursday morning. By 8:20, the executive floor of Ashford Holdings was awake. By 8:45, every department head had received a secure notification requesting immediate attendance in the main conference room. Nobody complained, nobody delayed; everyone understood the significance. For months, Ashford Holdings had been rebuilding, and now they stood on the edge of something larger, something permanent.
Seraphina entered the conference room carrying a folder thick enough to represent years of work. The room was already filling with executives; conversations stopped when she walked in, not out of obligation or caution but out of respect, and the realisation still felt strange occasionally.
