As the afternoon sun slanted through the tall, arched windows of the Grand Horizon Hotel, the air in the VIP section felt thick enough to cut with a knife. The scene was a masterclass in the delicate, often sickening art of social maneuvering within the high-stakes world of the United Dominion.
Issac Monroe stood by the wreckage of the table, his expression one of weary, profound boredom. To him, the exchange occurring just a few feet away was nothing more than white noise—the incessant chirping of insects who believed their buzzing actually moved the mountains. He watched as Matthew Jones and Lance Ford engaged in the kind of performative flattery that defined the upper echelons of power in Redharrow. To the uninitiated, or even to a woman like Natalie Pierce, this was the height of soph
