"I... I can't pivot that. It’s personal."
"Make it structural," Juno called out from the kitchen, where he was pretending to ignore us while monitoring the Meridian data feed. "Your father didn't die because of pressure. He died because the NHS hospice care was underfunded by the same government King supports. Don't defend your grief, Rowan. Attack the system that made the grief harder."
I looked at them. The lawyer, the bodyguard, the manipulator. They were taking apart my life and reassembling it into armor.
"Okay," I said, taking a breath. "Go again."
Stephen leaned forward, the sneer returning. "Let's talk about 2015, Rowan. You vanished. A breakdown?"
"A sabbatical," I said, my voice steady. "To study the ultimate efficiency of the healthcare system. Which, incidentally, has better retention rates than your production staff, Mitchell."
Stephen paused. The corner of his mouth twitched. The King persona cracked, just for a second, revealing the man underneath who was desperately proud of me.
"Good," he whispered. Then, louder, "Again. And stop fidgeting with your ring finger. You aren't married to the job."
I laughed. It was a sudden, sharp sound that surprised me. "I'm married to the paperwork, Stephen. You know that."
The laughter did something to the room. It broke the seal on the vacuum we had been living in. Mateo stopped hitting the wall. Juno looked up from his screen. Stephen finally took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, dropping the act entirely.
"We have the pivots," Stephen said, his voice hoarse. "You're ready."
"I'm terrified," I admitted.
"Terror is fuel," Mateo said. "Just don't flood the engine."
By 2:00 AM, the adrenaline had soured into exhaustion, but nobody moved toward the bedrooms. The bedrooms felt too solitary. Too far apart.
We ended up on the living room floor.
It wasn't a decision. It was a gravitational collapse. I sat with my back against the sofa, knees pulled to my chest. Stephen was lying on the rug next to me, one arm thrown over his eyes to block the ambient city light coming through the window. Juno was curled in the armchair above us, staring at the ceiling. Mateo sat against the opposite wall, legs stretched out.
"If this goes wrong tomorrow," I said quietly, addressing the darkness. "If King destroys me...the Protocol still stands, right? You released the data."
"The signal is out," Stephen murmured from the floor. "You can't put the ink back in the pen."
"Vance will try," Mateo said. "He’ll burn the paper."
"He can burn the paper," Juno said, his voice drifting down from the chair like smoke. "But he can't burn the memory. We gave them a story where they win. People don't forget that."
I rested my head on my knees. I looked at the shapes of them in the gloom.
I thought about the "ANCHOR" written in red marker on their wrists. I wondered if they had scrubbed it off yet. I hadn't checked. I didn't want to know.
We were risking everything. Stephen's license. Mateo's standing. Juno's entire network. And for what? A mid-level manager who got caught on a hot mic?
"Why?" I asked. "I know we talked about the strategy. But this... sitting on the floor in the dark waiting for the executioner... this isn't strategy. This is personal."
Nobody answered for a long moment.
"I tried to save someone once with a checkbook," Stephen said, his voice flat. "It didn't work. Law is cleaner when you use it as a sword."
"I got tired of watching," Mateo rumbled.
"I just like the fire," Juno said, though his voice lacked its usual spark. It sounded tired.
I looked at them. The pile of us. A makeshift barricade against a world that wanted to consume us for spare parts.
"I'm glad I met all of you," I said. My voice felt small, but sturdy. "Whatever happens tomorrow. Even if I crash and burn on live TV. I'm glad I had this."
