Ava had always thought fear was loud.
Racing pulse. Shaking hands. Breath stuck high in the throat.
But as she stood outside the boardroom on the executive floor of Lucan Tower, with the signed contract still warm in her bag, she didn't feel loud.
She felt very, very quiet.
The hallway outside the boardroom was glass and polished stone, intentionally echoing sound. Every whisper carried. Every heel strike was sharp. Whoever designed this level didn't want comfort. They wanted pressure.
Power lived up here.
Natalie was the only other person in the hall. She stood next to Ava, tablet in one arm, voice low.
"Rule one," Natalie said calmly. "Don't apologize unless you actually broke something."
"I didn't," Ava said.
"Good. Rule two. Don't fill silence. They'll leave you waiting just to see if you panic. Don't."
"Noted."
"And rule three," Natalie said. "If one of them smiles at you, that's the dangerous one."
Ava let out a small breath. "Are you trying to help me or make me run?"
"I'm trying to make you walk in there like you can't be replaced," Natalie said. "Because that's how he wants you seen."
He.
Not "Mr. Lucan."
He.
The door opened with a soft mechanical click.
Natalie nodded once. "You go first."
Ava stepped in.
The room wasn't as big as she expected. That was the first surprise.
It wasn't some dramatic movie-boardroom with fifty chairs and a skyline view. It was a long oval table, twelve seats occupied, one seat empty at the head. No windows. The lighting was warm but not kind. No reflective surfaces. No reporters. No cameras.
Lucan Corporation, stripped to bone.
And at the far end, already seated and impossibly composed in a charcoal suit, was Ethan.
He didn't gesture. He didn't speak. He just looked at her.
For reasons she didn't fully understand, that alone steadied her more than if he'd said her name.
Ava walked the length of the table.
She could feel them watching her as she moved — not as a person, but as a file they hadn't finished reading.
There was a woman in pearls with immaculate posture and a pleasant expression. There was a man with silver hair and a bored, almost sleepy gaze. There was a thinner, younger one who already looked annoyed just on principle.
Vanessa Grant was there, too.
Of course she was.
Vanessa sat two chairs from Ethan, back straight, gown traded for slate-gray elegance. No lipstick tonight. No red. No theatrics. She didn't need them.
Her eyes slid to Ava like a blade.
Boardroom instead of ballroom. Same temperature.
"Ms. Hart," someone said at last. A man's voice. Controlled. "Please have a seat."
It wasn't a request. It also wasn't kind.
Ava sat in the empty chair at the far end, opposite Ethan. He had the head of the table. She had the foot. Everyone else lay between them.
Almost funny, she thought. Like a board game.
The man who had spoken — late sixties, heavy watch, precise tie knot — folded his hands.
"I'm Richard Gray," he said. "I chair internal oversight for major spend."
Ava nodded once. She didn't offer a smile.
Richard continued, "This meeting is, on paper, an informal alignment conversation about public messaging and investor optics. Off paper…" His gaze sharpened. "Off paper, we would like to understand exactly what Mr. Lucan intends to do with you."
The way he said with you made her stomach flash hot.
Ethan didn't move.
He was letting them speak first.
Of course he was.
Vanessa's voice was smooth. "To be clear, we were all… surprised by last night's presentation. You were introduced as, and I quote, 'the creative force behind the new Lucan era.' That implies strategic authority. Authority over image, experience, investor impression. Those are not small levers."
Ava held her gaze. "If you're going to insult me, you don't have to coat it in boardroom language. Just speak plainly."
A flicker went through the room. A small, private voltage.
Vanessa's mouth curved. It wasn't nice. "Plainly, then? You shouldn't be here."
The younger man two seats to her left made a soft sound of agreement. "We don't usually elevate outside hires to figurehead status after forty-eight hours. It's… unstable."
Ava answered before she could overthink.
"So is decay," she said.
That earned her a pause.
She let herself breathe once, slowly, and kept going.
"You've all spent years making Lucan Corporation look invincible," she said. "Strong. Unshakable. Powerful. That's fine. That branding got you here. But from the outside looking in, do you know what the company looks like right now?"
Richard arched one eyebrow. "Enlighten us."
"A fortress," Ava said.
There was a faint humorless exhale from someone at the table. "And that's a problem?"
"It's a problem," Ava said evenly, "if you're trying to get the world to believe you're evolving."
No one moved.
That was something she had already learned: stillness was a weapon in these rooms.
She didn't let it stop her.
"From the street," she continued, "Lucan feels like money and force. Closed doors. Private elevators. Frosted glass. No one can get in unless you invite them. That works if your message is 'you need us more than we need you.' It doesn't work if your message is 'we understand you better than anyone else and you should trust us with the next ten years of the city.'"
Pearls Woman tilted her head, interested despite herself.
"Go on," she said softly.
Ava nodded. "People invest in what they think will survive. They commit to what they think will change them. Right now, you're only selling the first one."
Another small crack in the stillness.
Ethan was still absolutely silent.
Still watching.
Ava didn't look at him. She wasn't ready to.
Instead she leaned in just a little, hands steady on the table.
"You brought me in because Mr. Lucan needed something he couldn't manufacture from the inside," she said. "A believable story of change. Not a brochure. Not a tagline. A feeling. If you want the market to believe this company is entering a new era, then the company has to look like a place where a new era could happen."
Richard steepled his fingers. "And you think you can make that… feeling."
"Yes," Ava said.
"And if we don't want that feeling?"
"Then you don't want a future," Ava said calmly. "You just want a freeze-frame of your past."
For a moment, the room was completely silent except for the faint hum of the air system.
Then the younger man leaned back in his chair. "Confidence," he muttered. "Do you all hear this? She speaks like she's been here five years, not five minutes."
"I speak like someone who isn't afraid of you," Ava said before she could stop herself.
The air snapped.
Her pulse kicked hard. She hadn't meant to say that out loud.
But it was too late to reel it back in, and pulling away from it would smell like weakness.
So she held.
Vanessa let out a soft, almost amused breath. "That's cute," she said. "Confidence plays well in magazines. It doesn't keep companies from bleeding when a quarter goes sideways."
Ava leaned back in her chair then, mirroring Vanessa's posture so precisely that a few sets of eyes dropped briefly to follow the symmetry.
"And pretending you're unshakeable doesn't stop bleeding either," Ava said. "It just hides it from investors until it's already under the carpet."
Richard's gaze moved slowly from Ava to Ethan and back again.
"Ethan," he said finally. "Would you like to clarify the scope here? Miss Hart appears to be speaking as though she has executive protection. Does she?"
Ethan finally moved.
He didn't clear his throat. He didn't adjust his cuffs. He didn't do the soft little human things people did when they were about to talk.
He just looked at Richard Gray and said, "Yes."
That was all.
Yes.
It landed like metal.
Richard blinked once. "Meaning?"
"Meaning," Ethan said, "that any attempt to undermine her position, interfere with her access, or dilute her authority on the expansion initiative will be treated as an attempt to interfere with me."
No shift in volume. No anger. Just stated.
Vanessa gave a quiet disbelieving laugh. "Ethan. Listen to yourself. You're elevating a stranger and asking us to accept her as the face of the company's evolution. Optics matter."
"Correct," Ethan said.
"So does stability," Vanessa added, smile thin. "This is not stable."
Ethan's gaze slid to her. "Vanessa," he said, so light it almost sounded kind, "you're in investor relations. Not strategy."
She froze.
The younger man coughed once — not because he was sick. Because he was trying not to react.
It was the first public tap on the wrist Vanessa had taken in front of other senior people, and everyone in the room felt it.
Ava did too.
Ethan went on, "Miss Hart is not here to ask permission. She is here so you can adjust your expectations."
"And if we choose not to?" Richard asked.
Ethan didn't blink. "Then I'll adjust them for you."
A muscle jumped in Richard's jaw.
This was it, Ava realized.
This was the part no one outside would ever see. Not headlines, not magazine spreads, not charity galas. This was the actual game: patience and blunt force sharing the same table.
They weren't talking about design at all.
They were talking about succession.
They were talking about who actually ran Lucan Corporation.
And he had just put her in the middle of it.
Not beside him.
In front of him.
Her stomach tightened.
"Very well," Richard said at last, tone measured. "Miss Hart. You are, for now, recorded as creative lead on all expansion-facing public experiences. You will submit deliverables for review in forty-eight hours."
Ava nodded once. "Understood."
"Dismissed," Richard said.
He meant her, not Ethan.
That clarity was insulting, but she stood anyway. Pushing anything further right now would be ego, not strategy.
Besides — she felt Ethan's gaze on her as she rose.
It wasn't warm. It wasn't proud.
It was more like: I needed you to do exactly that. You did.
You're still on the board.
She left the room.
The door closed behind her with a soft latch.
Her knees went weak the second she was alone in the hall.
Her hands were trembling.
Not from fear. From adrenaline that had nowhere to go.
She pressed her back to the glass wall, shut her eyes, and let out the breath she hadn't allowed herself in front of them.
A voice spoke quietly near her shoulder.
"You didn't flinch."
Ava's eyes opened.
Natalie was there, tablet hugged against her chest. Her face, for once, wasn't perfectly neutral.
It was… impressed.
"I almost did," Ava said.
Natalie shook her head. "They were waiting for it. If you had tried to defend yourself too hard, you would've looked guilty. If you'd tried to argue status, you would've looked fake. You gave them an outcome they can live with and a tone they can't bully. He'll be satisfied."
"He?" Ava said softly.
"You know who I mean," Natalie said.
Ava swallowed. "I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse."
Natalie glanced down the hall, then leaned in a fraction.
"He added something this morning," she said. "Before the meeting."
Ava blinked. "What?"
Natalie slipped a folded page from between two briefing packets and pressed it into Ava's hand. "He said you could see it after, if you didn't embarrass him."
Ava unfolded it.
It wasn't long. Just a single-page addendum, already signed.
Addendum 8: Effective immediately, Ava Hart is granted consultation status on any vote concerning public-facing identity, messaging, spatial presentation, or investor experience associated with the Lucan Expansion Project. Her recorded position shall be entered in the minutes.
In plain language: whenever the board tried to vote on anything related to brand, story, physical presence, investor perception — her opinion was now on record.
Not private.
Recorded.
She didn't get a vote.
But her voice would be in the official minutes.
That meant if they ignored her and something failed later, she could prove they ignored her.
It was protection — of her, and of his narrative — disguised as process.
There was a line at the bottom, under Ethan's signature. Not legal language. Just handwriting.
For those who underestimate her.
Ava stared at it for a long moment.
Something in her chest, tight since last night, loosened half a degree.
Natalie watched her face. "Now," she said softly, "do you feel better or worse?"
Ava folded the paper and slid it into her bag.
"Neither," she said.
Then she lifted her head.
"I feel awake."
— To be continued —