At sunrise in a glass-walled conference room, rival CEOs glare across a polished table, offering clipped suggestions as their legal teams pass documents back and forth in tense silence. "If BrandX leads the retail strategy, who controls digital?" asks Olivia, the young marketing director, her pen hovering, while the seasoned CFO quietly slips a revised forecast to the mediator, his eyes never leaving the market tickers drifting across the skyline.

The mediator clears his throat, but the CEOs are already volleying numbers and slogans, each voice louder than the next. Paper coffee cups line the window ledge, their contents cooling as the clock inches toward nine. The CFO taps the merger agreement, just once, and says in a low voice, "You know the market won’t wait for us to agree."