The definitive thud of the chairman’s gavel still echoed in the marrow of my bones as I stepped out of the hearing room. The air in the grand, marble-floored hallway of the Place de la Concorde felt cool against my flushed skin. It wasn't the heat of victory I felt, but the sterile warmth of a server room after a successful, system-wide purge. The process had been draining, meticulous, and utterly impersonal. Justice, I was learning, was not a fiery sword but a cold, sharp scalpel.
Alistair Finch was waiting for me by the tall, arched windows overlooking the Tuileries Garden. He wasn’t pacing. He wasn’t checking his watch. He simply stood, a fixed point of calm in the quiet tumult of my world, his gaze directed out at the Parisian evening beginning to settle over the city. He turned as I
