The room felt as though the air had been vacuumed out of it. Cynthia's phone sat on the polished boardroom table like a live grenade. Her sudden appearance had already caught everyone off guard, but it was the look in her eyes that struck the hardest. Calm. Unyielding. Fire beneath the frost.

Mike Richard stared at her, brows knitted together in disbelief, anger simmering just beneath his composed exterior. He had never seen Cynthia like this. No tremble in her lip, no panic in her steps. She didn’t cower.

"Cynthia," he said again, slower this time, the warning in his tone sharp enough to cut stone. "I asked you a...