The door shut behind Sandro with a quiet click, but it might as well have been a thunderclap. The echo of it rang in Athena's ears long after he was gone.
For a long, fragile moment, she didn't move. Her fingers, still resting on the edge of the polished boardroom table, trembled ever so slightly. The air felt heavy—too heavy—pressing down on her until her chest tightened.
She swallowed hard. The silence in the boardroom was deafening. The faint hum of the city through the glass walls, the distant sound of traffic, the low whir of the air-conditioning—all of it merged into a single, droning note that filled the hollow space inside her.
She had won. That was what everyone would say. The board had voted in her favor. She had taken control of the empire Ewan had built with his blood and sweat. And yet, standing there, she felt no triumph. Only… emptiness.
Lonely.
Unsettled.
Unhappy.
