The Cost of Ambition

The boardroom doors clicked shut, sealing in the scent of stale espresso and the wreckage of the Vance empire. Outside, the city lights of the financial district blurred into a cold, indifferent smear against the glass. Inside, the air felt thin, vibrating with the sudden, violent absence of a war that had defined Elara’s existence for months.

Elara stood by the mahogany table, her knuckles white as she gripped the edge. The land grants, the forged ledgers, the digital ghosts of her family’s fraud—they were

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