Mara opened the door a moment later and looked at me like she'd seen a ghost.
Mark heard the silence and turned.
He had less of a reaction than Mara did. Mostly he just looked like a man who had been waiting for something unpleasant to arrive and had simply underestimated when.
"Ar… Arnold?" Mara gasped.
I looked at the worker nearest the door.
"How much longer?" I asked him.
He checked his clipboard. "Process is finalized, Sir. We're just clearing the remaining items."
He had less of a reaction than Mara did.
I turned back to Mara and Mark.
"This property belongs to me now," I announced, and let the silence do the rest.
They stood there while that settled.
Mara's hands were shaking. Mark was very quiet. He looked at me as if he wanted to say something, an explanation, maybe. But there wasn't anything left that I needed to hear.
I told them how it had happened. Not everything, but just the outline: the sketches on the kitchen table. The patent. The contract. The company. And the quiet, unglamorous accumulation of work that I had been doing while they were building something else entirely.
