The article dropped at six AM.
Aurora saw it at six-fourteen, which was how long it took her to make coffee, sit at her kitchen counter, and open the news aggregator her assistant had set up to flag anything mentioning Ashford Technologies, Rora AI, or Ray Carver before the markets opened.
The headline was measured. That was the first thing she noticed—not sensational, not the blunt instrument of a gossip piece, but the specific careful language of journalism that had been constructed to be credible.
ASHFORD TECHNOLOGIES ON THE EDGE: INSIDERS HINT AT A COVER-UP BENEATH LIAM ASHFORD'S LEADERSHIP
She read it standing at her kitchen counter in her robe, coffee going cold beside her.
