PART 16:

We’re not as different as you’d like to think. She kept her eyes on his profile. You and me. The silence between them held the weight of two people who had found different ways to live with the same kind of damage. She pushed off from the wall. I saw a psychologist for a while. Someone who works specifically with this kind of trauma.

If you ever wanted I could arrange for them to come here. Nolan turned. The expression on his face was sitting just underneath anger. A man who had been managing something for a long time and did not want it named. I don’t need your pity, Mara. His voice was quiet. You asked. I told you. I manage. His eyes held hers.

Goodnight. She straightened her robe and stepped through the door. Behind her she heard the clink of his glass being set down. In the corridor, her bare feet found the cool marble again. She walked toward the stairs. Maybe what you’re fighting isn’t your trauma, she thought. Maybe it’s your ego, Nolan Campbell.

She was halfway up the first step when she saw Edith. The older woman was standing at the far end of the corridor, still and upright, hands folded in front of her. She was watching Mara with an expression that wasn’t quite readable. Something cooler than concern. Something older than disapproval. Their eyes met.

Edith held the look for one deliberate second before she turned and disappeared back down the corridor. Mara stood on the step. She climbed the rest of the stairs and exhaled at the top. Does anyone in this house actually sleep? Mara set her alarm for 6:00. By 6:40 she was dressed, her bag on her shoulder, moving through the corridor with her shoes in her hand so the heels wouldn’t carry.

The study door was closed. The light underneath it was off. She didn’t stop. George was already at the front steps when she came out. He didn’t ask why she was 2 hours early. He just opened the door. On the drive to Whitmore Group, she was watching the city come awake outside the window and trying not to think about the conversation in the study, the iron gate visible through the glass, the way Nolan had said 20 ft away without any particular expression on his face, which was somehow worse than if he’d had one.

She was also thinking about Preston, not with sympathy, with the particular alertness of someone who had been reminded of something they’d been trying not to look at directly. Russian mafia, a bomb at a gate, a dead wife named Evelyn. And now Mara in the papers, in the house, in the middle of all of it. She pressed her fingertips against her knee and watched Seattle sharpen in the early light.

By 8:00, she had a window and Seattle below her. The city was fully awake, ferry lights crossing the sound, the particular gray-blue of a Seattle morning that never fully committed to either color. She’d been staring at it long enough that the coffee had cooled by 2° before she noticed she hadn’t been drinking it. Her phone buzzed on the desk, unknown number.

She looked at it, looked at the window, looked at it again. She picked up. Mara? The voice came careful and low, like someone checking a door was locked before they spoke. Are you there? Her hand went still around the mug. Elias? A name she hadn’t said in 4 years, a voice she would have recognized in any room, which told her something she hadn’t wanted to know about herself.

I called early. His voice carried the specific tension of someone who had prepared what they were going to say and was now measuring each word against it. I didn’t want anyone around when we talked. Mara set the mug down. Her eyes went back to the window. Elias. She kept her voice level. Why now? It’s been years. His answer came without hesitation.

I need to see you. Mara turned back to the window. That’s not really possible right now. Because you got engaged. His voice shifted, the careful tone giving way to something raw underneath. He was quiet for a second on his end. To Nolan Campbell. Have you really changed that much? Is there no one else in the world, Mara? You got engaged to an arms dealer.

Her jaw tightened. She kept it out of her voice. I don’t owe you an explanation, Elias. She turned from the window and moved to the other side of her desk, putting the width of it between herself and nothing in particular. And for the record, this is a strategic arrangement. That’s all it is. The words came out steadier than what was happening in her chest when she said them.

Is it though? She didn’t let the question reach her face. This wasn’t that kind of call. “I can’t meet with you,” she continued. “People are watching everything I do right now. So, tell me why you actually called.” The line went quiet for a moment. Then the shift she recognized, Elias moving from the personal into the cause, the way he always had, like throwing a switch.

We used to want the same things. His voice came quieter now. You remember that? We stood against everything Campbell and his industry represents. I keep wondering if that person is still somewhere in there. Mara’s eyes stayed on the window. Get to the point. He did. Two weeks from now, on the 23rd, Campbell Group is opening a new weapons facility in the Ravnic Republic.

His voice had found its rhythm now, the one she remembered from meetings and late-night arguments in campus buildings. The coverage will call it a defense investment, regional security, jobs, the usual language. Mara was standing very still. But what we’re hearing is different. We think this facility isn’t just for production.

👉 [Tap here for the Next Part ] 👈