He was in the shower. His phone lit up twice on the bathroom counter. I was not looking for anything, which is how most ugly truths prefer to be found. The name on the screen was Savannah. The message underneath it read, Miss you already. Last night was worth every lie.
I remember sitting on the edge of the bed afterward with one hand on my stomach and feeling not rage, not yet, but exhaustion. The kind that arrives when your heart has been doing unpaid labor for too long.
I did not confront him that day.
I called Arthur.
He came to my office the next morning carrying a slim folder and the expression of a man who had hoped not to be right.
“You’re not asking whether you can remove him,” he said after I told him.
“No.”
“You’re asking what happens if you don’t.”
That was why I trusted Arthur. He never confused legal power with emotional need. He knew what question was actually being asked.
We reviewed everything. Nolan’s executive package. His discretionary spending authority. Vivian’s foundation budget. The housing and transportation privileges tied to Halcyon. The board emergency provisions that could be invoked if a senior executive endangered the beneficiary, materially or reputationally. It was dry language for messy betrayal, but that is what law is often for: turning heartbreak into structure.
That was the first time he mentioned Protocol Seven.
