The clock on the wall of the Hobbs villa chimed, its resonance vibrating through the heavy silence that had descended upon the room. It was late, the kind of hour where the shadows of Novus City stretched long and thin, yet the core members of the Hobbs clan were gathered in the main parlor. The atmosphere was stifling, thick with the scent of expensive cigars and the sharp, ozone-like tension of a family crisis. Peter Hobbs, the current patriarch and acting head of the family, sat stiffly on the tufted velvet sofa. His face was a mask of simmering rage, his complexion turning a sickly, mottled grey.
"Jane," Peter began, his voice dropping into a low, menacing register that made the junior family members flinch. "I spent months navigating the political minefield of this city to secure our
