POV: Emilia Conti
The first attack didn't have a name attached to it.
That was intentional.
It surfaced as rumor—low-grade, conversational, designed to sound concerned rather than hostile. The kind of narrative that didn't accuse outright, but suggested just enough uncertainty to invite doubt.
I heard it in fragments.
"She's brilliant, but intense."
"Burnout does strange things."
"No one questions her skill—just her judgment lately."
Judgment.
That word followed me through the corridors like a scent.
Not spoken to my face. Never documented. Always implied.
This wasn't leadership.
Leadership had already adapted.
This was the middle layer—people who'd survived comfortably inside ambiguity, who now felt exposed by clarity.
They needed me destabilized again.
At lunch, I sat alone by choice, watching the room shift around me. Conversations quieted when I passed, then resumed with careful neutrality. Not avoidance. Calculation.
Alessio noticed it that evening.
