The city didn't slow down for anyone.
Traffic moved in impatient streams of steel and glass. Deals closed behind tinted windows. Laughter spilled out of upscale restaurants where crystal glasses clinked and nothing felt urgent.
To the outside world—
Nothing had changed.
But in certain rooms—
Behind reinforced glass, beneath layered security, within spaces where names carried power—
War had already begun.
And the most dangerous part?
Most people didn't even know they were standing in it.
⸻
Vivienne Laurent-Cassel
Vivienne did not like surprises.
Not because she couldn't handle them.
But because surprises implied something far more offensive—
A lapse.
A shift.
A moment where something existed outside of her control.
And Vivienne Laurent-Cassel did not operate in a world she didn't control.
She shaped it.
⸻
Her morning unfolded like precision.
Every movement deliberate. Every second accounted for.
