Amelia did not answer Elias immediately.
The question sat between them in the quiet conference room, heavier than it had any right to be.
Do you understand why Lucas truly needs you?
Outside the tall studio windows, evening shadows stretched across the warehouse district. The last workers in neighboring buildings were switching off lights. Somewhere below, a delivery truck groaned down the narrow street.
Amelia folded her arms.
“He needs me because of the trust,” she said. “You made that very clear.”
Elias’s face remained unreadable. “The trust is the practical reason.”
“And the real reason?”
“He has spent his life believing that control is the same thing as safety.” Elias’s gaze moved briefly to Daniel Vale’s framed drawing on the wall. “Lucas does not understand how to trust peop
