Morning dragged light across my ceiling. I lay still and replayed the sounds from the night before until they hardened into facts. Laughter from downstairs. Liam's voice mixing with Maria's. The silence that followed felt worse than confirmation.
I dressed in clothes that suggested authority. When I stepped into the hallway, Maria's door stood open. The bed remained untouched. That detail lodged somewhere behind my ribs and stayed there.
At breakfast, my father discussed market volatility. Margaret nodded at intervals, her gaze sliding past me without stopping. Silence pressed between us.
"I'll be working late again," I said. "The startup requires momentum."
Margaret's smile pulled tight. "You always seem busy lately."
Maria entered with loose hair and satisfied expression. She met my eyes briefly. Something flickered there that felt deliberate. I looked away first.
The office space surprised Liam when I showed him the keys. The building sat between a logistics firm and a café that smelled like burned espresso. I had paid the deposit myself, every pound documented.
"You did this without consulting me," he said from the doorway.
"We needed a workspace."
"You decided." He crossed his arms. "That matters."
"So does execution. Deadlines don't wait for consensus."
He walked the room slowly, scanning exposed wiring and secondhand desks. His expression shifted.
"This doesn't look like privilege," he said.
"It looks like work. Which you're welcome to contribute to."
He nodded once. Something unreadable settled behind his eyes.
We worked in tense silence for hours. Our ideas aligned with frightening precision. His predictive models locked neatly into my integration framework. The efficiency unsettled me because it felt like recognition, and recognition carried risk.
That night, my father waited in the study. His posture stayed rigid.
"You're spending too much time away. Margaret is concerned."
"I'm building something real."
"You already have opportunities. You declined them."
"I declined dependence," I said. My voice tightened. "There's a difference."
He rubbed his temples. "Maria says you're being reckless."
I laughed then, sharp and involuntary. "Maria says many things."
His silence answered for him.
I left that night with a suitcase. My chest felt hollowed by the realization that belonging here was always conditional. At the office, the city hummed outside while I sat alone, surrounded by half-built systems.
Professor Dean called the next morning.
"I expect progress and cooperation."
I assured him we were aligned. Something fractured quietly beneath the words.
When Liam arrived later, his demeanor had shifted. He challenged every decision, questioned every projection. His tone carried something personal he refused to name.
"You don't get to overrule me because you're faster," he snapped during a strategy review.
"I'm not overruling you. I'm preventing stagnation."
"You're controlling the pace. And the narrative."
I closed my laptop slowly. "If you think I'm your enemy, then you're wasting both our time."
The room fell quiet. Tension vibrated between exposed cables and unfinished code. He looked at me for a long moment, conflict written across his face.
"That's not what I said," he muttered.
"It's what you meant."
He left early without explanation.
I stayed, pushing through exhaustion, debugging until the lines blurred. When I checked my phone, a message from Maria waited.
You should really learn who people are before trusting them.
My fingers went cold.
I stepped outside for air. The streetlights blurred. Inside, the office lights flickered. My screen refreshed unexpectedly. Access logs scrolled briefly before disappearing, too fast to capture, too precise to be coincidence.
My breath caught as the system stabilized, pristine and silent, as if nothing had happened at all.