Maya told herself it was over.

She repeated it like a mantra as morning light slipped through the thin curtains of her apartment, painting pale lines across the floor. The city outside was waking up—cars humming, vendors shouting, life moving forward with an almost offensive normalcy. Davin was gone from power. The board had shifted. Alyssa stood at the top now, unshaken. The war that had consumed Maya for so long was, on paper, finished.

So this was supposed to be peace.

Maya sat at the small kitchen table, staring at a cup of coffee she had forgotten to drink. She wore simple clothes—no sharp dresses, no heels, no calculated...