Three days had passed since the East River freefall, and ICU Room 1 no longer resembled a hospital suite.
Damien had moved his corporate headquarters to the fourth floor of St. Jude's.
A sleek, temporary mahogany desk had been hauled in and placed right next to Aria's bed. Three glowing monitors, directed away from her, displayed real-time stock markets, global supply chain metrics, and encrypted security feeds.
Two private military contractors stood stone-faced just inside the door, while Ken operated a mobile printing station in the corner.
In the center of it all lay Aria. She was still deep in her medically induced twilight sleep, pale and peaceful, the rhythmic beep of her heart monitor providing a steady backbeat to the room.
Damien sat beside her. He was wearing a crisp white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, holding a very expensive fountain pen in his right hand as he signed off on a multi-billion-dollar acquisition of a tech firm in Kyoto.
