CASSIAN
The executive boardroom felt larger, colder, and more cavernous the moment Nick Bennett's expensive shoes stopped clicking against the marble outside.
I turned my gaze toward Noah. He was standing by the architectural model, his hands braced against the edge of the obsidian table.
"Nothing," he had said. "He was just being Nick. It's fine."
It wasn't fine. I knew that much.
I watched the way the color had drained from his face, replaced by a specific, sickly pallor that suggested his internal organs were currently performing a frantic reorganization.
His expression was too controlled, a brittle, glass-like mask that he was holding together with sheer willpower.
He was managing a crisis, and he was doing it with the desperate intensity of someone who didn't want the cracks to show.
I made a calculation.
Pushing Noah was a high-risk maneuver. I had studied him long enough to know that when he felt cornered, he didn't disclose; he retreated.
