The market opened quietly.
Aurora was on her second coffee, halfway through a contract review that Vanessa had flagged as needing her direct attention before Thursday, when her phone lit up with Liam's name. She answered without thinking—they'd fallen into that, somewhere in the last few weeks. His calls landing and her picking up with the specific reflex of someone who had stopped debating whether to.
"Tell me you've seen the morning numbers," he said.
No greeting. She'd noticed he dropped the greeting when something was wrong—the professional pleasantries were the first thing to go when Liam Ashford was managing something.
"I've been in contracts since eight," she said. "What am I looking at?"
