Chapter 103 - Chapter 103 – Unexpected Praise

The executive floor doors opened before Caro even reached her workstation, and Peter's voice cut through the early morning briefing room like a blade already in motion. "Stop the report cycle," he said sharply, forcing three senior analysts to freeze mid-slide as their screens updated in real time. Caro had just stepped inside with a stack of decoded routing logs when the entire room turned toward her instead of him, as if the atmosphere itself had shifted direction without permission. Her breath caught when she realized Peter wasn't looking at the data on the screen, but at the silent corrections she had been making overnight in the system layers.