The article was a stone dropped into the still, stagnant pond of the Vale Corporation, and the ripples spread with unnerving speed, reaching the innermost sanctum of power long before the morning coffee had cooled in its porcelain cup. Adrian had seen it the moment he'd sat down at his desk, a cold knot tightening in his stomach. He'd spent an hour staring at the screen, the carefully measured words "unusual timing," "questions from analysts," "reassure stakeholders" echoing in the silent, sterile space of his office. It was a reconnaissance probe, a single shot across the bows, but in the paranoid, high-stakes world his father inhabited, it was a declaration of war.
He was summoned not by a phone call or a polite request from an assistant, but by a terse, three-word text from Mr. Sterling that vibrated against the polished obsidian of his desk: "The office. Now."
