The studio pulsed with new life.

Aria’s first cohort—six designers from across the country—were already knee-deep in sketches, prototypes, and caffeine-fueled dreams. Some were nervous. Some were relentless. All of them reminded Aria of herself.

Especially one.

Mira, 23. Quiet. Brilliant. Chip on her shoulder the size of the skyline. She didn’t speak unless it mattered, and when she did, people listened.

Aria walked past her desk one morning and froze.

Because there, laid out on Mira’s table, was a sketch Aria hadn’t seen in over a decade.

Her original studio concept.

The one she’d shelved after Nathan’s death.

The one she’d drawn the night before he died, sitting beside him at their kitchen table, laughing about a future neither of them believed could actually exist.

Simple lines. Layered space. Modular flow with natural materials. Design as refuge. Design as healing.

And Mira had recreated it—without ever seeing the original.

Aria cleared her throat. “Where’d you get this idea?”

Mira looked up, a little defensive. “I was going through some of your older press, reading between the lines. Saw your early stuff. I don’t know. It just… came out.”

“It’s good,” Aria said quietly.

Mira tilted her head. “It feels… like you. But not the you in the magazines. The you behind the scenes. That version still exist?”

Aria met her eyes.

And for a second, she didn’t feel like the CEO, the survivor, or the storm.

She felt like the girl who stayed up too late drawing buildings on napkins while the rest of the world slept.

“I think she does,” Aria said.

Mira smiled. “Then maybe you should let her out again.”

Across town, Dominic stood in his corner office overlooking a skyline that once felt like his kingdom.

Now?

It felt like someone else’s story.

Hale’s empire had collapsed. The lawsuits were closed. The press had moved on. His board wanted to rebuild—merge, expand, conquer.

Dominic looked down at the contract in front of him.

Full reconstruction. Rebranding. Relocation. They wanted to strip Blackwood Capital down to the studs and rebuild from zero.

But the part that caught his eye?

CEO Transition Plan.

He was supposed to pass the torch. To someone hungry. Someone ruthless. Someone not him.

He stared out the window.

And for the first time in his life, he didn’t feel fear in letting go.

He felt freedom.