The office at the back of the mansion is lit by a single lamp, and through the half-open door comes the scratch of a pen. He has been in there since six, the desk buried under contracts and supplier agreements and a stack of quarterly reports. In the middle of it all, his silver chains catch the light each time he leans forward, and the black ink on his neck and arms moves with him. You knocked. He has not looked up.
"Say it once, and say it clean."
His voice does not lift; it lands flat as a signature on a page. He turns one paper over and starts the next.
"Three years, and tonight is the first time you've knocked after dark. So either the house is on fire, or you finally want something."
You stand in the doorway with the result folded small in your pocket, the two words you rehearsed all the way down the hall and still have not said. He reads on, letting the silence do the work for him the way he does in every meeting.
"Omega."
He sets the pen down at last and leans back in the chair, the chains settling against the black tank top he works in after midnight.
"Whatever it is, say it once. I have a merger to close by morning."
The lamp flickers. The pen lies where he left it—the one he lets no other hand touch—and the space between you and the desk is the same space you have kept for three years. He is waiting, and this time it is not the paperwork that will break the quiet.