Chapter 52: The Proposal Grant called Abigail into an unscheduled meeting the following Tuesday, his expression carrying a seriousness she hadn’t seen from him before. “The board’s been discussing something for the past month,” he said. “I wanted to bring it to you directly before it becomes a formal proposal, so you have time to actually think it through rather than react on the spot.” “Go ahead,” Abigail said. “We want to explore spinning off your regulatory strategy division into its own independent consultancy,” Grant said. “Vanguard would remain your primary client and largest stakeholder, but you’d own and operate it separately, taking on other clients across the industry. Halstead’s already expressed interest in retaining you independently. So has a firm in Geneva that heard about the Castellano exchange and wants exactly the kind of clear-eyed regulatory advocacy you demonstrated that night.” Abigail sat with that, the weight of it settling slowly. “You’re offering me my

Chapter 54: Growing Pains The two new clients who’d reached out after the Reyes situation turned out to be more complicated than Abigail initially realized. The first, a mid-sized diagnostics company called Corvid Health, came with a regulatory history considerably messier than they’d disclosed during the initial consultation. The second, a European biotech firm expanding into the US market, required expertise in international regulatory harmonization that stretched Elena’s capabilities and, if Abigail was honest, her own as well. “We’re growing faster than we’re staffing,” Elena said, laying out the workload during their Monday planning session. “I can’t properly vet Corvid’s history and manage the EU harmonization work simultaneously. Something’s going to slip if we don’t bring someone else on soon.” Abigail looked at the numbers Elena had compiled, the client roster nearly doubled in two months, revenue up considerably, and underneath it, the quiet warning sign of a firm expand

Chapter 56: Retaliation The industry piece ran on a Tuesday morning, and Abigail read it standing in her kitchen with her coffee going cold, the particular sensation of watching something she’d built get twisted in real time. The article, published in a mid-tier biotech trade publication, framed Corvid Health’s disclosure disaster as “yet another regulatory consultancy failure,” citing “sources close to the situation” who claimed Montgomery Regulatory Advisory had missed the calibration flaw entirely during their engagement, only discovering it after significant damage had already occurred. There was no mention of Delacroix’s deliberate deception. No mention of the firm’s immediate termination of the engagement upon discovering the lie, or the fact that Abigail herself had insisted on full, immediate disclosure rather than continued concealment. She called Elena within minutes. “Have you seen this?” “I’m reading it now,” Elena said, her voice tight with anger. “This is Dela

Chapter 58: The One She Missed The call came on a Thursday evening, Grant’s voice carrying none of its usual warmth. “Corvid Health’s board is filing a formal complaint against Montgomery Regulatory Advisory,” he said. “Not against you personally. Against the firm. They’re claiming that despite terminating the engagement, your team’s earlier advisory work contributed to a delay in their disclosure timeline that worsened the eventual damage to shareholders.” Abigail sat down slowly. “That’s not accurate. We insisted on immediate disclosure the day we discovered the deception.” “I know,” Grant said. “But their claim isn’t about that day. It’s about the three weeks before it, when your team was actively advising them on their regulatory strategy without yet knowing about the concealment. Their lawyers are arguing that a sufficiently thorough regulatory audit should have caught the calibration flaw earlier than it did, regardless of Delacroix’s deception.” Abigail felt somethin

Chapter 60: Two Years The regenerative compound’s first treated patients marked their three-month follow-up the same week Montgomery Regulatory Advisory closed its most successful quarter since founding, and Olivia suggested, half-joking, that the two milestones deserved to be celebrated together. What began as a suggestion became, over two weeks of planning that neither Samuel nor Abigail fully orchestrated themselves, a genuine gathering, not a gala, not a formal industry event, simply dinner at Samuel and Olivia’s home, the guest list assembling itself organically out of two years of people who had, in their own separate and difficult ways, become something like an extended family. Charlotte arrived with Elias, the two of them having developed, over the preceding months, an easy working friendship built on shared respect for precision and honesty. Adaeze came with Ezinne, settling into the evening with the particular warmth of someone who had, finally, found herself genuinely