The boardroom reeked of leather, sweat, and figurative war. Allison sat at the head of the table, jaw clenched, lips pressed into a thin, immovable line as the walls closed in on her.
This was exactly what she had warned Tommy about. Unfortunately, the stubborn boy hadn't seemed to care.
"Is this what the Donovan adjacent press release was for?" barked Caldwell, the sharp-browed finance head whose voice carried like a gavel. "A PR stunt so toothless that not even weeks later, your son's name is still smeared across every headline like fresh blood?"
Her jaw clenched as he threw the morning paper onto the sleek black surface.
The words Mackenzie Empire Cracking? were printed in brutal bold type. Just beneath, a freeze-frame of Tommy with his lips curled, hand raised mid-argument outside a dilapidated looking building, then another with his fiancée visibly recoiling as she was bundled in a blanket.
