Timothy sat at the head of the Gold Aries boardroom table with his hands folded and watched twelve people attempt to conduct a meeting by talking over each other. He had already made the private calculation that he had approximately twenty more minutes before his headache graduated from manageable to something that would require him to excuse himself and lie down in a darkened room.The agenda was straightforward on paper. Quarterly performance review, integration updates on the ShopVille consolidation, and a preliminary discussion of the northern expansion corridor that Arthur's Vance acquisition had complicated. Forty minutes, possibly an hour if someone asked too many questions.What had actually happened was that one of the ShopVille legacy shareholders, a man named Proctor who had held a minor stake for nine years and had opinions proportionally larger than his position, had arrived with a prepared document outlining his concerns about the integration timeline. This document had

In the chairman's office, Alan was calmly seated, staring at the yellow legal pad on the desk, uncapped pen beside it, and nothing written on it yet.He leaned back in the chair and looked at the city through the window.He had been back in Silver Lace for just over a month, which felt longer than it was and shorter than it felt. He left it alone and started from the beginning instead, chronologically...He came back from four years in the ATC's consecutive deployment cycle to find his wife remarried, his city changed, and his company having become something significant in his absence. Those were the starting conditions. Everything since had been building on them.First, of course, was the divorce. He registered a faint internal note about that. Lucia had remarried Michael Fletcher. He had signed the papers in his ex-mother-in-law's living room and walked out into the rain and met Hazel Hades by virtue of a near-miss with her car.The contract marriage had been Hazel's idea, driven by

"Uh, sir, you've been staring at the screen for… minutes now. Should I turn it off?” Jasmine, defeated, summoned courage to ask.After Dane Fontaine's speech, Alan had suggested they watch the rest of the Mega-market opening, which was quite unlike him; he never cared for these kinds of things. Besides, as much as the people loved Dane Fontaine, he couldn't be considered a challenge for Gold Aries, or even their smaller firms.Of course, there's the lingering foreboding of Dane’s company shooting up overnight, so considering his recent growth. Albeit, Alan had tackled worse.This begged the nagging question in Jasmine's mind: Why was Alan Walker so fixated on Dane Fontaine?Alan relaxed in his chair and massaged his temple with two fingers, “Yeah, turn it off." She did as requested, paced about for a moment, then stopped before his desk, unable to curb her curiosity, "Do you think he'll become a threat very soon?”"Hm?” Alan felt his brows curl up. "Oh, no, no. Well, he'll eventually

The diner sat at the corner of Fifth and Mercer, its windows fogged from the difference between the cold outside and the warmth within. Dane Fontaine pushed the door open and scanned the room until he found her, seated in the back booth with a half eaten plate in front of her and a stroller parked by her side.Lucia looked up as he approached and offered a tired smile, "Ah, you made it.""Traffic," Dane muttered, sliding into the seat across from her. "Sorry I'm late."She waved it off and reached for her glass of water, taking a slow sip before setting it down. Dane glanced at the stroller, then back at her, his expression softening ever so slightly."How is she?" he asked. "The baby, I mean.""Loud," Lucia said, and huffed out something close to a laugh. "Doesn't sleep unless she's being carried around the room like a sack of flour. Michael says I'm spoiling her already.""You probably are," Dane teased."Probably," she agreed, without any real defense in her voice.He studied her f

The next day, the morning news ran a segment on Fontaine Group's latest community initiative, a scholarship program aimed at underprivileged students across three districts in Silver Lace. Hazel watched it from the kitchen counter, coffee in hand, her eyes narrowing at the polished production value of the piece. Children smiled at the camera, teachers spoke glowingly of new resources, and Dane Fontaine appeared at the end, humble and soft spoken, thanking the community for trusting him with their future.Alan walked in halfway through, loosening his tie as he crossed toward the counter. "What's got you frowning this early?""Fontaine," Hazel answered through her teeth without looking away from the screen. "Again."He glanced at the television, watching the segment wrap with a shot of children waving handmade signs. "Scholarships now, huh?""Scholarships, food drives, a mentorship program he launched last month that somehow made the front page of three separate outlets," Hazel said, s