Chapter 191: Crosswell Expansion Threatened

The briefing arrived before dawn.

Nathaniel read it standing at the window of his office, city lights still dim beneath a veil of mist. The report was concise, clinical, and deliberately understated. A consortium had filed a formal challenge against Crosswell Dominion’s eastern port expansion. Environmental objections. Labor concerns. Infrastructure risk assessments.

All legitimate on paper.

All familiar.

He did not need to read the names twice.

Whitmore capital moved quietly. It always had. Where Crosswell confronted, Whitmore constrained. Where Nathaniel expanded openly, Beatrice Whitmore preferred pressure applied through intermediaries that left no fingerprints.

He closed the file and exh