The sterile blue light of the boardroom seemed to fracture as Hellino's chair screeched across the titanium floor. The sound was like a blade sharpening on stone, a jarring intrusion into the calculated silence that had followed Doctor Dwayne's grim story.
Hellino surged. His towering frame, clad in the scarred armor of a frontline commander, cast a long, jagged shadow over the scientists who sat comfortably in their climate-controlled sanctuary. His chest heaved, the adrenaline of a soldier meeting the cold realization of a strategist.
"You knew," Hellino's voice was a low, dangerous vibration that made the water in the glasses on the table tremble. "You sat here, in this fortress of glass and high-voltage dreams, and you let her walk into that slaughterhouse. You knew about Jennifer Thorn. You knew about the impending danger. You knew that Hebner Grand doesn't just kill his enemies—he erodes them until there is nothing left but ash and silence."
