Rafael said nothing. He looked at her with that same steady, unhurried attention and let the silence do the work that denial would have done less convincingly.
Five heartbeats passed.
"There are things you might not understand yet, Tatiana." His voice was almost gentle, which made it more unsettling than if he had been cold. "I am moving toward something. A specific something. And I wouldn't want to pull you into it."
Tatiana waited.
"What today confirmed," he continued, "is that Cassian transferred fifteen percent of Crown Capital into the name of a woman he trusted with something significant." He chuckled dangerously and softly that didn't quite reach his eyes. "And the more I sit with it, the more it interests me."
"You want those shares," Tatiana said. It was not a question but a statement, delivered the way her mother had taught her to deliver uncomfortable truths.
