CHAPTER 116 — THE WEIGHT OF WHAT FOLLOWS
The morning after silence spoke, the world did not return to normal.
It recalibrated.
Elena sensed it before any report reached her desk, before Marcus entered with folders, before Adrian spoke a single word. The estate itself carried the shift. Not tension. Not unease. Something sharper—awareness. As if every corridor had learned to listen.
Staff members moved with intention rather than habit. Conversations stopped the moment they began to drift. Doors closed softly, not out of fear, but restraint. The kind that emerged when people understood they were no longer being watched—but were fully visible.
She welcomed that uncertainty.
Uncertainty forced honesty.
