The alarm buzzed at five-thirty, echoing through the small, neat house Dwayne had bought two months earlier. He lay still for a long minute, staring at the ceiling, feeling the silence close around him. No housekeeper bustling in the kitchen, no voices down the hall—only the quiet hum of the refrigerator and the faint hiss of traffic beyond the window.
He sat up and rubbed his face. The air smelled faintly of coffee from last night. His suit jacket hung over the chair where he'd dropped it after another sleepless night spent answering emails that no one had asked him to send. He hadn't been to Empire Brands in days, not since the board had begun their "internal review."
They hadn't called it a suspension yet. Not officially. But he knew what it was. Harold had managed to move the pieces carefully, deliberately, and now the board had questions about "recent management decisions." Dwayne had seen this game before—he'd just never imagined he'd be the one on the board's list.
