The CEO office held the same controlled quiet it always did-- thick carpet absorbing movement, low lighting casting warm, contained pools across the desk, the city pressed faintly against the glass beyond it. The air carried a trace of citrus and something wood-toned beneath it, a scent that had settled into the room long before she started using it.
Galathea Brooks stood behind the desk.
She hadn't taken the chair.
A stack of contracts sat aligned in front of her, each page marked with clean tabs, the top sheet already turned halfway as if someone had paused mid-review. A pen rested parallel to the edge, placed with the kind of precision that suggested habit, not thought.
She picked it up.
The paper beneath her hand felt smooth, heavier than standard print stock. Legal. Final.
Her eyes moved across the last paragraph once more, not because she needed to read it again, but because the motion anchored the action that followed.
Then she signed.
p.p. Cael Alexander
