Lucien arrived at Vale Industrial’s technical offices ten minutes before the scheduled meeting, carrying a folder of notes that had been marked, corrected, and reorganized twice on the journey.He had considered wearing his only suit. It had been pressed carefully the night before, but the shoulders no longer sat quite right, and the jacket carried the faint signs of years spent in storage between occasions that had never come. In the end, he chose a clean charcoal shirt and dark trousers. He would not pretend to be someone he wasn’t. If the company wanted his mind, he would give them that.At reception, a woman in a navy jacket checked his name against a list. Her eyes flickered briefly toward his hands, where a thin line of grease remained beneath one fingernail despite his efforts to scrub it away.“Mr. Legion, they’re expecting you. Please take the lift to the fourth floor.”No one smirked. No one asked whether he had come to repair a company car. The ordinary courtesy unsettled h

The story went live at 6:12 on a Thursday morning.Lucien did not see it first. Clarice did.She was awake before sunrise, sitting near the window with a blanket around her shoulders and a cup of warm water on the table. Sleep had been difficult since the reporter first contacted Lucien. Every time her phone lit up, she wondered whether another person had discovered something about her, whether another stranger had decided that her private life was public property.The notification appeared beneath a headline about the entertainment industry.ACTRESS STACY LEGION’S MARRIAGE COLLAPSE: EX-HUSBAND MOVES ON WITH PREGNANT NEW PARTNERClarice stared at it.For a few seconds, she considered closing the notification and waiting until Lucien woke. But the photograph beneath the headline caught her attention. It showed Lucien leaving Vale Industrial, dressed in his usual dark work jacket, a document case in one hand. The image had been taken from a distance. He looked tired, focused, and unawar