The arrival of Robert Holt, CEO of Holt Defense Consortium, was announced not by a formal press release but by the sudden, intrusive presence of his security detail at the Marlowe Tower. Holt Defense was a behemoth built on global conflict, moving with the efficient ruthlessness of a private army. Robert Holt himself was a man of granite: broad, severe, his authority radiating not from wealth but from strategic, unquestioned power.
The meeting took place in the executive salon, a room usually reserved for celebratory signings. Today it felt like a silent execution chamber. Magnus Marlowe sat opposite Robert Holt across a vast, circular table of white marble. Seraphina was positioned at Magnus’s right hand, the living testament to the stability she had just bought the company with the GTC
