Page 196 of Diego

He bends and kisses the top of my head. “Two hours.”

I look up at him. “You said there was no deadline.”

“That is not a deadline. That is when I am coming back to make sure you get up and move and eat and generally remember that the rest of the world exists.”

“I am deeply offended by how little faith you have in me.”

He smiles and heads back toward his office.

I wait until I hear the door close before opening the first file.

The initial hour disappears almost instantly.

Most of the properties are straightforward. A small commercial building that had been overpriced even before interest rates changed. A group of suburban apartments with deferred maintenance substantial enough to make the acquisition unattractive. A mixed-use property that had been under contract twice and fallen apart both times because the seller refused to negotiate on environmental remediation.

I make notes as I go, separating everything into three categories: ignore, maybe, and worth a closer look.

The first property I flag seriously is a small portfolio of apartment buildings that Meridian evaluated eighteen months ago. The numbers are not spectacular, but the buildings are in areas where values have been climbing steadily, and the ownership group seems tired rather than financially distressed. It matters because a tired owner can sometimes be more motivated than a desperate one because they want simplicity more than maximum price.

I add it to the review folder with a note for Diego.

The second is a commercial building near a redevelopment corridor. Meridian had valued it for a potential buyer who eventually walked away. The building itself is unremarkable, but the parcel is larger than I expected, and the zoning makes the land more interesting than the existing structure.

Flag.

Then I find an old hotel conversion that sends me down a forty-minute rabbit hole involving permits, a failed financing package, and a disagreement between two former partners. I eventually decide it is probably more trouble than it is worth, but I mark it as a maybe because the location is too good to dismiss completely.

This is the happiest I have been in weeks.

That might be slightly pathetic.

I decide I don’t care.

There is something deeply satisfying about taking scattered information and making it coherent. Properties tell stories if you know how to look. Sale dates, mortgages, tax assessments, zoning applications, permits, ownership transfers—none of them mean much in isolation, but together they tell you what someone intended to do and sometimes why they failed.

People lie constantly.

Paperwork doesn't if you know how to read it the right way.

I work through another series of files and start noticing how much history Meridian actually accumulated before the Contis acquired it. There are internal valuations for properties the company never listed, emails about potential sellers who changed their minds, notes from brokers who left years ago, and records of deals that vanished because one side stopped answering calls.

It is messy, incomplete, and fascinating.

Every so often, I forget entirely that I am technically supposed to be recovering.

Then I shift position and feel the mild heaviness that still appears when I have been sitting upright too long, and I remember.

I close the laptop for ten minutes.

It irritates me, but I promised.

I eat some of the fruit Diego left, drink half the water, and stretch my legs carefully along the sofa. The lake beyond the windows is bright in the afternoon sun, and for the first time in a while, I truly enjoy the view because I know I am going back to something when my break is over.

When I open the laptop again, I move into a folder containing failed Conti Enterprises acquisitions.

That gets my attention immediately.

There are fewer of these because most are relatively recent, and some already have updated notes showing that the company either abandoned the idea or acquired the property through another route.