The week passed quietly, the way storms sometimes do before they break.

Each morning I arrived at the office before anyone else. The corridors smelled faintly of coffee and ambition, new interns clutching clipboards, secretaries typing furiously, the low hum of printers warming up. It was a rhythm I knew by heart.

Now, as I walked through those glass doors and the security guards greeted me with a nod of recognition, it was easy to forget that legally, this company didn’t belong to me ...