The room's stillness underwent a terrifying transformation. It was no longer the absence of sound; it was a dense, pressurized vacuum that accumulated weight with every passing second.
It was the heavy, suffocating stillness of a coiled spring, or the moment of absolute silence before a dam bursts, the suspension of all motion, all breath, all life, waiting for the single, violent word that would trigger the carnage.
The combat-adjacent representative, a man whose very muscles seemed to vibrate with the instinct to draw steel, finally broke the tension. His voice was low, gravelly, and stripped of all pretense.
"How long?"
The question wasn't a request for a timeline; it was a demand for a reckoning.
Valentina turned her gaze toward him. Her eyes were ancient, weary, and shadowed by a darkness that seemed to pull at the light in the room.
"How long have you known?" he pressed.
