C36 The Quiet Acquisition

The city never truly slept, but at 2:17 a.m., it whispered instead of shouted.

From the top floor of Sterling Ventures’ temporary operations tower, Ashley watched the slow crawl of headlights along the coastal highway. Mahanhatta glowed in fractured gold beneath the haze, restless and alive, a reflection of the storm she was carefully building behind layers of spreadsheets, shell corporations