Vivienne Laurent did not frighten easily.
She had built her empire on precision, on foresight, and on an almost surgical ability to see ten moves ahead of everyone else in the room. She did not react. She anticipated. She orchestrated.
So when her smile faltered at the sight of that message, it was not fear that followed.
It was recognition.
Her grip on the phone tightened by a fraction. The skyline beyond her glass office blurred into a smear of lights and steel. For a single, dangerous second, she allowed herself to replay the line in her head.
You taught me how to fight. Now I will teach you how to lose.
Vivienne exhaled slowly.
"Lucia Vale," she murmured.
There was no signature, but there did not need to be. There were only a handful of people in the world who would dare to speak to her like that. Only one who would do it without rage. Without desperation. With that cold, surgical certainty.
She set the phone down on the glass desk, perfectly aligned with its edge.
