The car ride to Lacroix's headquarters was a silent, charged space. The morning's tension hadn't dissipated; it had been compressed, sharpened into a focused, lethal energy.
Charles sat opposite me, his tablet open, but he wasn't reading. He was watching me. His gaze was no longer just assessing; it was measuring, calculating, as if trying to solve a complex puzzle where I was the central, most unpredictable variable.
I met his stare without flinching. I was no longer his secretary. I was his strategist. And a strategist does not cower.
"The old-money families he's courting," I said, breaking the silence, my voice crisp and professional. "They won't respond to financial projections. They'll respond to lineage. To narrative."
Charles didn't look away from me. "So what's our narrative?"
