“I need you to understand something,” I said. “I stayed in that Pavilion. I sent Julian out the door, I stood next to you, I said the words, not because of the contract, not because of the council, not because of any of the reasons this arrangement started. I stayed because I believed you were being honest with me. That was the entire reason.”
He didn’t look away. “I know.”
“So tell me right now, is there anything else? Anything at all that you haven’t told me because you were handling it or managing it or waiting until you had proof? Because I need to know the full architecture of what I walked into, Sebastian. All of it. Right now.”
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he said: “Sit down, Mira.”
And the way he said it, not as a deflection, not as a stall, but with the grave, careful weig
