legally fragile. He had insisted, with maddening gentleness, that without the original affidavit present at signing, any vote should be delayed.
Mara had thought he was being theatrical.
Now the pouch was gone.
Amara rose. “We’ll call the lobby.”
“Call everyone,” Mara said. “Hotel security. The doorman. The car service.”
Leonard stepped closer, his face arranged into concern. “Mara, we all understand this is a stressful day.”
She turned on him. “Don’t.”
A flicker passed through his eyes.
Then his voice softened even more. “No one is attacking you. But we have obligations. If the original affidavit cannot be produced, the board cannot responsibly move forward.”
Across the table, one investor looked down. Another checked his phone. Nobody wanted to meet Mara’s eyes.
The acquiring company’s lead representative, Celeste Ward, sat at the far end, motionless in a navy suit. Her silence was not hostile, but it was heavy. Celeste had negotiated hard for the merger. She had also made clear that her firm would not inherit a legal war.
Mara felt the old ache in her chest, the one that had opened the night Daniel died and never fully closed.
The treatment was not just a company asset. It was Daniel’s last promise. He had sat in their kitchen during his final spring, thinner than he wanted her to notice, explaining trial models with a pencil in one hand and a mug of untouched tea in the other.
“This one matters,” he had told her. “Not because it’s elegant. Because it reaches kids everyone else writes off.”
After he was gone, Mara had kept working because stopping felt like burying him twice.
Now Leonard was trying to take even that from her.
“We will find it,” she said.
Leonard glanced at the screen where the signing documents waited. “The injunction window closes at midnight. Our rival knows the filing schedule. A delay of even one day gives them room to claim interference.”
“I know the schedule.”
“Then you know what this means.”
Mara held his gaze. “It means someone should check the lobby cameras.”
His smile stayed in place, but his eyes cooled. “Of course.”
The first fifteen minutes passed in controlled panic. Amara made calls in a low, rapid voice. The hotel manager searched the lobby. An assistant ran down to the car and returned empty-handed. Security checked the elevator bank and the private reception desk.
Nothing.
Mara stood by the windows with her phone in her hand, listening to the rain lash the glass. Behind her, Leonard began speaking with board members in hushed tones.
He was careful not to whisper too softly. He wanted her to hear fragments.
“Unfortunate pattern.”
“Since Daniel passed.”
“Too much emotional attachment.”
“Clinical mission is admirable, but governance matters.”
Mara’s nails pressed half-moons into her palm.
Amara came to her side. “The manager says no pouch was turned in. They’re checking footage, but it may take time.”
“We don’t have time.”
“No.”
Mara looked at the table. The pens were lined up beside the signature pages. Everything was prepared except the one thing she needed to prove she deserved to remain in charge.
Leonard tapped a knuckle gently against the table. “Perhaps we should discuss contingency leadership for the transaction. Just temporary, of course.”
Mara turned.
There it was.
Not concern.
