Ethan didn’t knock.

He never did anymore.

The door to Alyssa’s private office opened with a quiet certainty, the kind that came from someone who no longer asked for permission to enter her world. Alyssa didn’t look up from the holographic display floating above her desk, streams of financial projections and international headlines reflecting faintly in her eyes.

“You’re late,” she said flatly.

Ethan closed the door behind him. “You told me not to be early.”

“I told you not to be predictable.”

A corner of his mouth twitched, but there was no humor in it. Outside the glass walls, the city burned with neon and ambition—new investors circling like...