I stood in the corridor for exactly thirty seconds.
Not because I needed to collect myself. More because some moments deserve thirty seconds
before you fold them away and move to the next thing. Charles Blackwood had just walked
out of a meeting where I gave him the last mercy I had, and he had taken it, and now the
machinery was going to grind toward its conclusion with or without anyone’s feelings about it.
Almost done. Almost.
Charles called Adrian that evening. I found out from Daniel, who found out from Adrian, who
called me at nine with the particular quiet of a man processing something that had just shifted
the shape of the whole situation.
“He’s going to cooperate,” Adrian said.
“I know,” I said.
A pause. “You went there without telling me.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t have t
