The meeting ended.
Chairs scraped harshly against the floor, the sound echoing through the cavernous room. Papers were gathered with sharp, clipped movements. Voices dropped into low murmurs as the directors stood one by one, their silhouettes stretching long across the mahogany table.
No one spoke to me.
But their eyes did.
They were heavy with suspicion, calculating my value. Resentment simmered beneath the surface, thinning the air between us.
They lingered as they filed out—their gazes not quite meeting my face but fixing on the chair beneath me.
Alina's chair.
I was sitting in the President's seat, the high-backed leather throne of J&K.
Technically, one of them should have been acting as a substitute in her absence. Seniority and tradition demanded it.
Instead, I was here.
A new director leading a table full of veterans.
I would have been thrilled in any other situation. The symbolism alone was intoxicating. But now?
