_Author’s POV_
Kaelen walked in about ten minutes after Virella’s humbling.
He came through the main entrance in a dark jacket, relaxed, the easy confidence of a man walking into a space he now owned. He was scanning the room the way owners scanned what they owned, checking the crowd, the staff, and the general atmosphere of the place.
Then he saw the table and stopped.
His eyes moved across the group. Kasper. Greg. Pierre. Ezekiel. Virella sitting with her cheque book still open on the table like a prop from an argument that hadn’t finished yet.
And most importantly, Rowena.
He stood there for a moment. Then he walked over.
The table felt it before he arrived. That particular shift in energy that happened when someone with history walked into a space where that hist
