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His hand, flat against the folder, curled slowly into a fist he hadn’t consciously ordered it to make. He noticed it doing that. He let it.

He wanted, with a suddenness he had no immediate use for, to know what her hands looked like doing anything other than holding a rod of molten glass. He wanted to hear her voice say a full sentence to him, not to some stranger standing off-frame. More than either of those, he wanted to find whoever had taken the photograph and ask them exactly one question: what she’d been laughing at. He suspected the answer would be small and ordinary, and he wanted to know it anyway, more than he’d wanted to know most things that had ever crossed his desk.

He wasn’t going to ask that question. Recognizing that he wanted to ask was already enough of a problem for one afternoon.

“Mr. Sharpe.”

He looked up. Six executives were watching him with the kind of careful patience people learn only after years of knowing better than to interrupt him — and one flicker of alarm underneath it, because in four years nobody at this table had ever once watched him stop moving mid-decision.

He gave them the correct answer without remembering how he’d reached it, closed the meeting early — a first, in the entire history of the company — and kept the folder.

Victor didn’t knock. Victor had never once knocked in nine years, on the theory that anyone dangerous enough to warrant knocking was also dangerous enough that a closed door wouldn’t have helped.

He crossed to the desk, tablet already open, and took one look at Norden’s face before he’d even set it down. “You look like a man who found out his coffee’s decaf.”

“I don’t drink decaf.”

“I’m aware. That’s what makes the face interesting.” Victor tilted his head, studying him the same measured way he studied a room before deciding whether it was safe to walk into. “You’re gripping that folder like it owes you money.”

“It’s a file, Victor.”

“Sure. That’s what they all say at first.”

Norden gave him a look, which Victor correctly read as an invitation to get to business and not an actual threat.

“Surveillance. New activity around the Devlin contracts, started before she even signed.” Victor turned the tablet around. A parked car, a street that didn’t usually get much parking traffic, timestamped two nights before the contract went out by courier. “Whoever it is knows how to stay out of frame. That’s not some kid with a phone. That’s a team, and teams cost real money.”

“Handle it.”

“Already on it. Second team’s watching her building as of an hour ago, which you’re welcome for, since I did it before you even asked.” Victor studied him, easy and untroubled, the way he studied everything, then let one eyebrow do the thing Norden’s own face had been actively avoiding all day. “You want to tell me why the CEO of a hotel company suddenly cares this much about a glass artist’s parking situation, or should I guess?”

“Guess.”

“I’d rather not say it out loud in a room with windows.” Victor didn’t smile. That read worse than if he had. “I’ll have a full report by end of day. Try not to close any more meetings early. People are starting to whisper about a heart attack.”

“I don’t have a heart condition.”

“I know. That’s what makes it a good rumor. Nobody can disprove it, and everybody enjoys repeating it.” Victor tucked the tablet under one arm. “For what it’s worth, whatever this is, it’s the most interesting thing that’s happened around here in months. Part of me doesn’t want you to fix it.”

“Fix it anyway.”

“Was that supposed to be reassuring? Because it wasn’t.”

“No.”

Victor didn’t push further, not because he’d run out of things to say but because he never pushed past the point where pushing stopped being useful. He collected information the way other men collected grudges, quietly, for later, patient enough that the answer usually came to him eventually. He pocketed the tablet and let himself out, already dialing someone else before the door shut behind him.

Norden found his assistant at her desk, contracts stacked with the kind of precision that was the entire reason she’d survived three years working for him.

“I’m overseeing the Devlin installation. Personally.”

Her pen stopped mid-signature. “Personally. You.”

“Problem?”

“No, sir.” Fast recalibration, professional mask back in place. “You don’t usually manage individual contractors.”

“I’m aware.” He didn’t explain further.