Pressure didn’t announce itself.

It accumulated.

Amara understood that now — not as a metaphor, but as a mechanism. Pressure lived in calendars filling too fast, in calls returned a little later than usual, in the way once-confident voices softened at the edges when they said, We just need clarity.

Clarity was the enemy of comfort.

She welcomed it.

The morning after the compliance inquiries widened, Amara arrived at her office early, coat still on, hair loosely tied back, carrying nothing but a slim folder and a tablet. No entourage. No dramatics. She moved like someone who knew exactly where the floor would hold and where it would give.

Julian...