The week moved.
Not quickly, not slowly—just with that steady rhythm that usually meant everyone in the Meridian Development Initiative had finally hit their stride.
From what I saw at Gray & Milton, the legal teams were actually smiling for once. The engineering division said they were ahead of schedule. Even the planning committees—who were usually allergic to optimism—kept throwing around words like "stable," "solid," and "on track."
It was the calm before a big presentation, but calm was still calm.
Meanwhile, Val wasn't calm at all.
She hid it well. She always hid it well. But you can only stay around someone long enough before you learn to hear the tension under the silence—like a second heartbeat that didn't belong there.
And ever since she'd gone to see Lucien, that second heartbeat had been loud.
By the time she got home that evening, I could already tell from how quietly she closed the door behind her that whatever she found—or didn't find—had only made things worse.
