He looked down, exhaling sharply, a brief flash of something I hadn’t seen in years: fear. Real fear. Not the fear of being caught cheating or losing money, but the fear of losing control—the one thing he had relied on for so long.

The clerk, still polite but no longer neutral, handed me a stamped receipt. “This confirms the Notice is recorded. Any further actions on this property will require your approval.”

I tucked it carefully into my folder. The weight of it felt good—calm, precise, unshakable.

Ethan straightened, recalibrating himself. The panic melted into something colder, sharper, a controlled anger that barely contained itself. He gave me a quick nod, trying to mask the storm inside, but I saw it. Every twitch, every flicker of eye contact, every minute tightening of his jaw.

“Right,” he said finally, his voice carefully even. “Looks like… we’ll have to go through the proper channels.”