Reagan's office at eight that night looked like a war room, files spread across the desk in stacks Ivy didn't have the stomach to count, and Reagan herself looked less like the polished chief of staff from the gala and more like a woman who'd spent the last fourteen hours doing something she clearly hadn't expected to be doing when she woke up that morning.

"Sit," Reagan said, and this time it didn't sound like an order so much as a warning.

Ivy sat. Sterling stood behind her chair instead of taking one of his own, close enough that Ivy could feel the tension coming off him like heat.

"The...