NEVA POV
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Nobody moved for a full minute.
The car sat at the compound gate the way expensive things sat — with the confidence of something that wasn't accustomed to waiting and had decided not to let the waiting show. Nobody got out. Nobody signalled. Just the car, engine off, the particular patience of someone who understood that arriving was already a message and wanted to let it land before the conversation began.
Reine was the first to stand. Not urgently — with the deliberate quality she brought to everything she'd decided to face rather than avoid.
She crossed the room.
Ryke put one hand briefly on the frame of the back room doorway, blocking it — not stopping her, something more like a question delivered through posture.
She looked at his hand. Then at him.
"He came for m
