Ines watched his friend for a moment, then gave his shoulder a firm pat. "Don't take what Hugo said to heart. He was angry, lashing out. I'll make him apologize when he's cooled down." He turned to head back inside, but Zane's voice stopped him, raw and quiet. "Do you think I'm selfish too? Heartless?" Ines paused. "Zane, you grew up in that vipers' nest. If you didn't use every means to climb, you and your mother would've been crushed long ago. You did what you had to do. It's just... bad timing with Darcy. That's all. Don't overthink it. You have Zora now. You have a whole future ahead." Zane smoked alone for a long, long time. A deep weariness settled over him. A small, insistent voice in the back of his mind whispered that everything he'd been chasing was wrong. He'd wanted the Vance family's approval. But what did that approval even mean? He'd done fine on his own, hadn't he? He could still provide a good life for himself and his mother. He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the thoughts away. Don't think about it. The engagement is the day after tomorrow. From now on, my life will only get better. He stood in front of the hotel, watching the city night come alive. Traffic flowed, neon signs pulsed. In that moment, the familiar, driving hunger for more reignited within him. He wasn't wrong. Everyone wanted to climb. He was just following his own path. On the drive home, his phone rang. It was Rex. "Mr. Vance, you should come to the office now." Zane pinched the bridge of his nose and checked his watch. Almost nine. What could be so urgent that it had to be handled right now? Rex hesitated. "Dr. Moss is here." Zora's there? That made it even less appealing. Plus, with his face bruised, he'd have questions to answer. "Let her handle it." "Mr. Vance, I really think you should come in person." Rex's tone was off, strained. Zane pulled over, switching to a video call, his camera pointed at the roof of the car. "I'm tied up. Show me what's going on." The screen filled with the view from Rex's phone. It was the R&D department. Unlike the dark floors around it, the entire second floor was brightly lit. A crowd of people filled the hallway, voices raised in a heated argument. Zane's brow furrowed. "What's all this noise? It's the middle of the night." At the sound of his voice, the argument died instantly. All eyes turned to the phone in Rex's hand. "Zane, you're finally here." Zora's voice came through, laced with a challenging edge as she stepped into view of the camera. She peered, trying to see his face, but the angle showed only the car's ceiling. Hearing her intimate tone, Zane's brows tightened again. At the office, he liked business to stay business. No mixing public and private, even if their engagement was in two days. Especially not in front of so many employees. Not a good look. He kept his voice level and authoritative. "What's the situation? Why is there a shouting match in the hallway at this hour?" The head of R&D, Zeke Rowe, opened his mouth to speak, but Zora cut him off. "Zane, the R&D team has no resilience. They can't handle the workload from the Voyager Securities contract. They're threatening to walk out. Since that's their attitude, I'm doing them a favor and letting them go. But Mr. Rowe here has the nerve to barge into my office and criticize me! Talk about ungrateful!" Zeke almost fainted from anger at her twisting the story and flipping the blame. "Mr. Vance, that's not what happened at all! After we signed the Voyager contract, Dr. Moss demanded we complete the R&D phase in one month. She threatened to withhold our annual bonuses if we failed! You know how complex the workload is. My team's already pulling late nights till 9 PM every single day, and even then, the earliest we can deliver is in three months. Cutting that by two-thirds is impossible!" Before he finished, Zora folded her arms and snorted, "If that's not cutting it, then make those overtime hours longer. Treat the company as home—we can provide cots, sleeping bags. The problem isn't the difficulty; it's a failure of mindset. Mr. Rowe, you claim to care for your team, but you are a company employee first, a department head second. Your loyalty is misplaced. Your job is to solve problems for the company, not create them." "We're human beings, not machines!" Zeke shot back, his face flushed. "We have families! Who the hell can pull overtime till midnight every single night? And Dr. Moss—you're in charge of both R&D and sales. You're the Vice President! When have you ever set an example? I've never once seen you work late! You roll in at ten, bolt out the door by five—you've got more free time than our interns!" "You—!" Zora's face paled, then flushed with anger. She hadn't expected such a public, direct challenge to her authority. She took a sharp breath, turning her attention back to the phone screen. "Zane, you see? This is the attitude problem I'm talking about. Firing them is fully justified." Zane's brow stayed tight. He found Zora's words not entirely unreasonable.