The words did not solve her immediate problems, and Daniel knew that. Therese had bills due, a family that depended on her, and no guarantee that any judge would see things their way. But when she looked up, Rory was already making a call to her firm, and Daniel was walking beside her rather than leaving her alone outside the doors. For the first time, she did not have to decide what to do next by herself.
Rory's office occupied the twelfth floor of an older building three blocks from Summit Dynamics. It had none of the headquarters' theatrical luxury, only practical furniture, tall bookcases, a printer that sometimes refused to recognize its own paper tray, and a conference room with windows that rattled when buses passed below. At 12:15 on Thursday, Therese sat on the leather sofa holding a cardboard box with her coffee mug and grandson's photograph inside. Daniel stood at the window looking toward the tower where Warren had returned to his office.
"Say something," Rory told him. "You've been standing there ten minutes."
"I'm thinking about how much he enjoyed that," Daniel said.
"He planned for it," Rory answered. "His attorneys prepared the request, obtained the temporary order, and chose the moment to make it public. That doesn't make their allegations true, but it makes him dangerous in a way we have to respect."
Daniel turned away from the window. "Tell me what the order actually stops. Not what he says it stops."
Rory took a legal pad and drew a line down the middle. On one side she listed the rights temporarily affected: voting control tied to the disputed share acquisition, the new chairmanship, and executive changes arising from those rights. On the other she listed what the order did not destroy: the underlying purchase documents, the lobby recording, independent witnesses, the access logs, Therese's notebook, and the company's obligation not to conceal relevant records. She explained the difference between temporarily preserving a disputed arrangement and deciding the merits of the dispute.
"He has four days in the chair," Daniel said.
"Until Monday's hearing, unless the court revisits the order earlier. We use those days to make the record accurate. He can claim we're trying to take the company away from him; our answer has to be the documents, not a better speech."
Therese listened to them speak of injunctions, affidavits, and corporate control as though those things were weights being moved around a table. Her own life felt smaller and more fragile. She had brought a lunch to work that morning and left it in the refrigerator behind reception, something so trivial that its sudden importance almost made her laugh. She wondered who would collect it and whether the replacement receptionist would know that the coffee maker shorted out if both warming plates were switched on at once.
"What happens to my health coverage?" she asked.
Rory stopped writing. "We'll seek immediate review of the termination and the benefits status. I can't promise an outcome in advance, but we can make sure you understand your options and have independent advice about your rights."
Daniel pulled out a chair. "I should have asked that before discussing my title."
"You don't need to apologize for having a title," Therese said. "You just need to remember other people can't afford four days of uncertainty as easily as you can."