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“I know.”

After he left, Winston walked over. I rested my hand on his head. I looked back at the name on the page. Six years. I had believed it belonged in the past.

I was wrong.

Chapter 10

Emilia

The email was on my mind the moment I opened my eyes.

Marcus had told me to rest, and I had. The message was with Security now. There was nothing more I could do. Even so, my mind returned to it before anything else. I had to make a conscious effort to remind myself that I had no control over the situation.

Still, the worry remained. Someone knew what to ask about, and how to ask about it.

There was nothing useful in dwelling on it. I lay still, watching the early morning light gather across the ceiling. What I needed was somewhere peaceful. The conservatory. I got dressed, made coffee, poured it into a tumbler, and headed downstairs. The anxiety hadn’t disappeared, but for the first time that morning, I was looking forward to something else.

The conservatory was empty. The orchids were doing what they normally did. Nothing rushed them. Whatever was happening elsewhere in Blackwood Hall had no bearing on them. I sat down on one of the benches and took a sip of my coffee. It always smelled so wonderful in here, a mix of earth and flowers. I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. I felt the pressure in my chest easing.

“Dr. Rossi?” I turned. Julian was standing a few feet away, a coffee cup in his hand. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“No, not at all. And please, call me Emilia.”

“Do you mind if I join you?”

“No, please.” I gestured to the empty space beside me. He took a seat.

We talked for a few minutes about the day ahead. I mentioned our afternoon data meeting and invited him to join us. He agreed. I wished him a good rest of the day before heading toward the Research Pavilion.

By the time I reached the laboratory, Priya had already run two experiments.

The data was good. Not dramatically so. Science did not often produce drama. In fact, if it did, that was usually a sign that something had gone wrong. The response observed in the new patient samples was consistent with what we had already seen, and that consistency was what mattered. Consistency was the beginning of reproducibility. It was a solid foundation on which a trial could be built.

“Priya, you have been hard at work,” I said.

“I ran them both at five-thirty this morning,” she said. This wasn’t anything unusual for Priya.

“You couldn’t sleep?” I asked.

“Not really.”

I studied the data while Priya watched my reaction. “The pattern is holding.”

We stood there for a moment in the silence of two people who had spent years working toward a result and were now handling it with extreme care, as though too much confidence might break it.

“We need to see it in at least two more sets of patient samples,” I said.

“At minimum.”

“And then we’re ready to publish.”

The corner of Priya’s mouth turned up. “Today is a good day.”

“It is,” I agreed. “And please, leave early today and rest.”

The morning continued as usual. Mateo arrived at eight twenty-nine, preserving his record by exactly one minute. The team moved between benches again, preparing samples, collecting data, and running the day’s tests.

Julian sent the proposal for our collaboration. I spent a few minutes reading through it before responding with a suggestion that we meet weekly, beginning the following week. At nine forty-five, I received a message from Marcus’s office. It thanked me for promptly reporting the previous night’s incident, confirmed that the matter was under active investigation, and asked me to attend the eleven o’clock Executive Briefing, where the security incident would be discussed.